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1.0 


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■am  12.5 

|J0    "^       1^ 

[jKi    122 

■luu 

I U   1 1.6 


6" 


FhotDgraf^c 

Sciences 
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1  2  3 


1 

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5 

6 

THE 


Print  of  His  Shoe: 


OR, 


FOLLOWING   CHRIST. 


Wherever  I  have  seen  the  print  of  his  shoe  in  the  earth, 
there  I  have  coveted  to  set  my  foot  tool 

•^Bunyan's  Pilgrim, 


BY  THE 

REV.  WILLIAM  WYE   SMITH> 


."•  • 


•  ••• 


BOSTON  AND  CHIGA^: 


••  • 


..'•/ 


••  » -•  •  • 


•^7-^^6-6 


Copyright,  1887,  by 
Congregational  ScNR^^^Bi-Z^K^sPuBUSHiNG  Society. 


•«. 


•-.• 


s    ,    , 


'ft » -  («» 


•  »•• 


EJf^ifrotyped  and  Printed  By 
I  \\»    Stanley  &»  Ufker*,  171  Devonshire  Street,  Boston,  Mass. 


PREFACE. 


The  short  cjMipters  in  jthis  volume  were  mostly  writ- 
ten for  the  young;  but  I  have  found  that  what  is 
suitable  for  young  persons  is  generally  interesting  also 
to  those  who  are  older.  A  few  of  the  pieces  have 
appeared  in  The  Sunday-school  Times,  Philadelphia, 
and  in  the  Sunday-school  periodicals  of  Mr.  David  C. 
Cook,  Chicago ;  and  are  reproduced  here  with  the  per- 
mission of  the  publishers  of  those  papers.  The  author 
hopes  his  little  book  may  be  serviceable  to  those 
beginning  to  follow  the  footprints  of  the  Master^  and 
to  those  who  are  not  unwilling  to  receive  counsel 
from  an  older  pilgrim. 

WILLIAM   WYE  SMITH. 
Newmarket,.  Ontario,  1886. 


CONTENTS. 


PAOB 

The  Print  of  his  Shoe i 

The  Likeness  of  Christ 8 

Assurance 12 

Indifference iS 

Christ's  Robe 18 

The  City  Lieth  Four-square 22 

The  Jubilee 26 

My  Will,  Which  is  Myself 3' 

The  Conscience       . 35 

Acted  Parables -39 

Reading  Between  the  Lines 42 

Enlisting  with  Christ 47 

Crossing  the  Red  Sea 49 

Christ  Alive $2 

One  Thing  or  the  Other 54 

Thinking  in  Right  Order 56 

Justification  and  Holiness 58 


vi 


CONTENTS. 


■*■  FAGB 

Born  from  Above 6i 

The  Far-reaching  Nature  of  God's  Law   ....    63 
The  Three-fold  Aspect  of  God's  Covenant   .     .     .69 

Good  Sayings  of  Bad  Men 71 

Dividing  our  Time • 74 

Helpers  in  Prayer ,     ,    yy 

Working  from  Within 80 

Sowing  and  Reaping 82 

Jesus  on  the  Cross  ...........    84 

Christ  as  a  Yoke-fellow 89 

Jesus  in  the  Old  Testament 92 

Providence '95 

The  Secret  Marriage 98 

One  Rule loi 

What  Did  He  Do? 104 

Not  all  Sin  Seen  at  Once 106 

Giving  God  Reasons 109 

The  End  of  Sin      ...» .111 

Conviction  through  Evidence 113 

Only  One  Among  the  Rest    .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .115 

The  Sinner  a  Covenant-breaker 119 

Value  of  First  Impressions .  122 

The  Purpose  of  Prophecy 124 


CONTENTS.  vH 

PAOK 

It  is  Finished ! 127 

Religion  for  Use 1 29 

Some  One  Thing 131 

Not  only  Objecting,  but  Proposing 134 

Tribulation 138 

In  the  Treasury 140 

*•  The  Lord  is  my  Shepherd" 142 

Daily  Bread .  144 

Among  the  Standing  Grain 147 

What  Can  We  Know  About  Heaven?      .     .     .     '150 

Memorials 156 


■L_ 


THE   PRINT   OF   HIS   SHOE. 


"  T  HAVE  loved  to  hear  my  Lord  spoken 
A  of,"  said  Mr.  Standfast,  one  of  Bunyan's 
pilgrims,  "and  wherever  I  have  seen  the 
print  of  his  shoe  in  the  earth,  there  I  have 
coveted  to  set  my  foot  too."  And  our  one 
great  aim,  our  one  motto  and  principle  all 
through  life,  ought  to  be :  "  To  follow  Christ ; 
to  please  God."  A  life  without  an  aim  is  a 
life  frittered  away  and  wasted.  And  no  aim 
is  worthy  of  having  that  perishes  with  the 
life  spent  in  pursuing  it.  Our  life  will  never 
rise  unless  it  has  something  above  itself  to 
rise  to. 

"  But  how  can  I  find  the  print  of  his  shoe  ? 
How  can  I  know  exactly  what  pleases  him  ? " 
You  have  his  Word.  God  has  given  us 
all  that  he  saw  to  be  necessary  and  best  in 
the  Bible.  You  will  find  there,  either  in 
general  principles  or  in  specific  advice  and 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


direction,  what  the  character  and  acts  of  a 
Christian  are  and  should  be.  And  you  will 
find  the  same  in  examples  given;  the  best 
example  of  all  being  Christ  himself. 

"  But  then  there  are  so  many  circum- 
stances in  which  I  am  placed,  where  I  have 
no  example  of  Christ.  I  do  not  know 
whether  he  ever  was  in  such  circumstances 
or  not." 

Let  me  see :  you  are  a  school-boy  of 
eleven  or  twelve.  Are  there  any  good  boys 
in  your  school } 

"  Oh,  the  boys  are  all  good.  At  least, 
they  are  all  pretty  fair.*' 

But  try  to  fix  upon  one  who  tries  to 
please  God  ;  who  imitates  Christ  as  far  as 
he  can. 

"Well,  there's  Willie  Roberts.  I  think 
he  is  about  as  sure  for  heaven  as  any  body  I 
know.  Yes,  I  believe  Will  tries  to  be  like 
Christ." 

It  would  be  easy,  would  it  not,  for  you  to 
suppose  what   Willie   Roberts  would   do   in 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


circumstances  in  which  you  find  yourself, 
but  which  you  never  saw  him  in  ? 

"  Yes,  I  think  so.  Now  if  a  fellow  wanted 
to  fight  Will,  I  could  just  think  beforehand 
how  he  would  act.  Or  if  he  got  an  insulting 
note  from  somebody,  or  some  one  asked  him 
for  help  in  some  distress,  I  think  I  know  just 
what  he  would  do." 

You  know  how  your  friend  would  act  in 
any  possible  circumstances.  If  you  were 
equally  acquainted  with  Christ,  would  you 
not  know  how  he  would  speak  and  act }  And 
would  it  not  be  a  good  exercise  for  your 
imagination  to  dwell  on  Christ  morfe,  and 
judge  from  his  character  what  he  would  do 
and  say  in  any  given  case  ^  And  you  your- 
self do  the  same.  Wouldn't  that  be  follow- 
ing Christ  ••*  Would  n't  that  be  discovering 
the  print  of  his  shoe,  that  .you  niight  set  your 
foot  there  too }  Do  you  think  that  Jesus 
went  to  school  at  your  age,  as  you  do  ? 

"  I  don't  know.  Probably  they  had  n*t 
any   schools   like   ours,  in    Nazareth." 


f 


4  T//E  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 

You  are  right :  we  can  not  tell.  But 
we  may  be  certain  he  mingled  with  other 
boys  and  had  at  times  to  stand  provocation 
and  injustice.  Now,  if  he  were  at  your 
school,  he  would  be  something  like  Willie 
Roberts,  only  better  and  more  perfect. 

"  But  is  it  right  to  talk  about  Christ  that 
way  }  to  make  him  so  common-like,  and  bring 
him  right  in  among  us } " 

Why,  yes.  And  it  is  putting  Christ  so 
far  away  from  their  every-day  life  that  is  the 
trouble  with  most  people  in  the  world.  Piety 
for  a  death-bed  ;  religion  for  the  inside  of 
churches  ;  Bible-reading  for  Sunday ;  every 
thing  else  for  self  and  for  this  world  only. 
I  once  spoke  to  an  old  farmer  about  his 
drinking  —  a  man  who  was  very  pious  on 
Sunday,  and  who  would  have  been  vexed  to 
be  considered  any  thing  else  than  a  Christian. 
He  said  he  had  a  long  distance  to  haul  his 
crop  of  wheat  for  sale  in  winter,  and  found  it 
absolutely  necessary  to  call  at  a  half-way 
tavern  and  drink  something.     I  said  to  him 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


that  Christ  went  about  from  place  to  place, 
preaching,  when  he  was  upon  earth,  and  was 
very  kind  and  familiar,  and  talked  to  people 
on  the  way.  Now  if  he  should  overtake. 
Jesus  on  the  road,  and  he  going  to  the  same 
market-town,  what  would  he  do  with  him  ? 
Why,  he  would  ask  him  to  ride,  and  give 
him  a  good  seat  on  his  sleigh,  on  his  bags  of 
wheat.  But  what  would  he  do  when  he  came 
to  his  half-way  house  ?  Would  he  leave 
Jesus  sitting  on  the  load  of  wheat  in  the 
wintry  wind,  while  he  himself  went  into  the 
bar-room  for  his  whisky.?  Or  would  he 
take  him  into  the  bar  with  him  } 

He  interrupted  me  at  this  point,  and  said 
he  "  did  n't  think  it  was  right  to  talk  about 
our  Lord  in  that  way."  But  he  would  not 
answer  my  question.  My  dear  boy,  we  need 
to  find  Christ's  tracks  every  day  in  the  week. 
We  want  to  have  him  with  us  every-where 
and  at  all  times.  And  if  it  would  degrade 
Christ  to  be  with  us  and  to  do  as  we  do,  then 
we  are  degrading  ourselves  by  going  where 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


Christ  would  not  go,  and  doing  what  Christ 
would  not  do.  Now  that  is  one  very  good 
way  of  finding  "the  prints  of  Christ's  shoe 
in  the  earth."  And  the  habit  of  thinking, 
"  What  would  Christ  do  if  he  were  in  my 
place  .^"  or  "What  would  Christ  say  if  he 
were  here  "i "  —  this  habit  will  soon  become  so 
strong  and  fixed  that  even  in  dangers  and 
difficulties  suddenly  arising,  the  mind  will 
decide  at  once  :  "  If  Christ  were  in  my  place 
he  would  do  so  and  so  "  ;  or,  "  If  Christ  were 
here  he  would  speak  thus." 

And  don't  forget,  religion  is  like  every 
thing  else :  it  becomes  easier  and  more  per- 
fect as  you  practice  it.  The  soldier  learns 
to  march.  The  step,  at  first,  is  too  long  or 
too  short  for  him  and  it  is  very  wearisome 
always  keeping  step  with  the  others.  But 
after  a  time  he  drops  into  the  confirmed 
habit ;  you  can  tell  him  by  his  march,  as 
you  see  him  all  alone  on  the  street.  And 
he  can't  bear  now  to  walk  with  any  body 
without  keeping  step  with  him.     And  our 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE, 


renewed  nature  becomes  our  only  nature. 
And  we  are  unhappy  if  for  ever  so  short  a 
time  we  feel  that  we  have  left  Christ's  foot- 
prints. The  pilgrim  was  right  who  coveted 
to  set  his  foot  wherever  Christ  had  left  "  the 


PRINT  OF   HIS   SHOE. 


n 


!»i 


I 


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il 


I 


THE  LIKENESS   OF   CHRIST. 


"OHOW  me,"  says  the  worldling,  "a man 
O  who  exhibits  in  his  character  and  con- 
duct a  perfect  likeness  of  Jesus  Christ,  and 
then  I  '11  believe  that  there  is  something 
else  than  hypocrisy  among  professors."  My 
dear  friend,  you  are  too  exacting.  Your  own 
sons  do  not  show  all  your  characteristics, 
though  each  of  them  shows  something  of  the 
father.  All  the  world  and  a  great  deal  more 
would  not  equal  God ;  and  it  takes  all  the 
world  and  a  great  deal  more  to  image  Christ. 
Yet  every  Christian,  if  he  zs  a  Christian, 
shows  some  feature  of  Christ. 

We  look  at  some  masterpiece  of  ancient 
sculpture,  and  we  say :  "  There  is  the  perfec- 
tion of  the  human  figure."  But  the  statue  is 
not  the  likeness  of  any  one  man  who  ever 
lived.  We  may  imagine  Phidias  or  Praxite- 
les loitering  around  the  Olympic  or  Isthmian 

8 


THE  LIKENESS   OF  CHRIST. 


games,  taking  observations.  There  the  poise 
of  a  head  would  attract  him,  and  draw  forth 
his  ready  pencil  to  trace  it  on  some  little 
tablet ;  there  the  outline  of  a  bust ;  there  a 
leg ;  here  a  hand ;  elsewhere,  and  in  detail, 
the  various  features  of  the  face  —  one  having 
the  perfection  of  form  in  one  feature,  another 
in  another;  till  at  last,  by  combining  all 
these  in  one  ideal  form,  he  produced  what  we 
all  recognize  as  a  perfect  representation  of  a 
perfect  human  figure.  So  with  the  likeness 
of  Christ  among  men.  You  can  not  find  it, 
or  any  thing  nearly  approaching  it,  in  any  one 
man  or  any  one  circle  of  men.  But  pick 
out  the  likeness  of  Christ  among  Christians, 
feature  by  feature,  and  there  is  more  of 
the  likeness  of  the  great  Master  than  we 
imagine. 

The  sister  of  a  little  boy  had  died.  It  was 
before  the  age  of  photographs,  and  no  like- 
ness remained  of  the  lost  dear  one  but  in  the 
fond  memories  of  her  friends.  The  little 
brother  was  inconsolable. 


ri 


lO 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE, 


"  Could  n't  somebody  paint  a  picture  of 
sister? " 

But  the  parents  reasoned  :  "  But  you  have 
no  little  picture  or  any  thing  to  show  the 
painter.  How  could  he  tell  what  your  sister 
looked  like  ? " 

"  I  could  tell  him,"  said  the  boy. 

At  last,  to  gratify  and  console  the  little 
fellow,  he  was  sent  to  Boston  on  a  visit  to 
friends,  and  authorized  to  make  the  attempt 
to  find  a  painter  who  could  produce  the  like- 
ness of  a  girl  he  had  never  seen  and  of  whom 
no  likeness  remained.  He  went  to  one  painter 
and  then  to  another.  But  they  shook  their 
heads.  At  last  one,  younger  perhaps  and 
more  enthusiastic,  said  to  the  boy  :  — 

"  Come  with  me  where  we  can  see  many 
pictures  of  people,  and  point  out  one  that 
looks  like  your  sister." 

They  went  to  a  gallery  of  portraits. 

"  That  is  like  her  eyes,"  he  said,  pointing 
to  one.  "  Her  hair  was  like  that,"  he  again 
exclaimed.      "  Her    mouth    was    like     that. 


THE  LIKENESS  OF  CHRIST, 


II 


That  is  her  forehead."  And  thus,  feature 
after  feature,  he  pointed  out  the  likeness  of 
his  dead  sister.  And  the  painter,  by  combin- 
ing all  these  in  one,  made  a  portrait  that 
all  her  friends  said  was  a  perfect  image  of 
the  loved  and  lost  one.  Are  we  hypocrites 
because  we  each  can  show  but  some  one 
feature  of  our  blessed  Lord  ? 


It: 


ASSURANCE. 


OUR  salvation  depends  on  the  meritorious 
work  of  Christ,  and  his  truth  in  telling 
us  of  it.  But  I  can  not  judge  of  Christ's  truth 
by  looking  into  my  own  heart.  I  may  find 
whether  I  believe  him ;  but  his  worthiness 
to  be  believed  is  to  me  a  matter  of  evidence, 
not  of  feeling.  There  is  a  serious  mistake 
made  here  by  many  who  have  no  assurance, 
because  they  are  not  considering  "  the  record 
that  God  gave  of  his  Son,"  but  only  their 
own  feelings. 

I  have  to  cross  a  bridge.  I  have  heard 
many  conflicting  reports  about  it.  I  have 
seen  some  who  had  utterly  refused  to  trust 
themselves  on  it,  while  others  assert  they 
have  gone  over  it.  I  am  in  sight  of  it,  and 
my  trouble  increases.  Shall  I  sit  down  and 
ask  myself :  **  Am  I  bold  enough  to  go 
over  it  ?    Shall  I  risk  it  ? "  and  stay  there  till 


sa 


ASSURANCE, 


13 


I  get  my  feelings  wrought  up  to  the  pitch  of 
rushing  over  it  ?  No !  I  have  taken  up  the 
wrong  question.     The  only  sensible  question 


I 


ought 


to   ask   and   answer    is :   **  Is    the 


l^ridge  safe  ?  Is  it  strong  enough  ? "  I  shall 
not  get  these  answers  out  of  my  feelings. 
I  shall  get  them  out  of  the  right  use  of  my 
senses  and  my  judgment.  I  see  people 
passing  safely  over  it.  Now  that  is  evi- 
dence the  bridge  is  strong  enough  to  bear 
others.  I  cautiously  and  carefully  examine 
the  foundations  and  the  superstructure  ;  and 
the  evidence  of  my  eyes  pronounces  it  good. 
I  get  acquainted  with  the  builder  of  it,  and 
find  he  is  a  skillful  and  an  honorable  man. 
I  take  evidence  as  to  dates,  and  I  find  it  has 
not  lasted  yet  nearly  as  long  as  it  is  intended 
to  last.  On  every  point  and  at  every  turn  I 
find  satisfactory  evidence.  Now  I  walk  over 
with  perfect  confidence.  I  had,  in  fact,  for- 
gotten to  think  about  my  feelings.  My  feel- 
ings had  to  follow  my  judgment ;  and  my 
judgment  was  satisfied. 


I 


I  \i 


#  .fi 


H 


T//E  PRINT  OF  Ills  SHOE. 


So  about  Christ.  If  you  think  he  is  not  a 
safe  Saviour,  examine  his  credentials ;  test 
his  character  ;  listen  to  those  who  have  been 
saved  by  him ;  find  out  what  his  work  is  and 
how  he  does  it. 

As  said  an  old  man  in  Scotland,  who  had 
been  converted  in  his  old  age  and  was  now 
dying  :  "  You  see,  I  *11  tell  you  how  it  is  :  he 
says  it,  and  I  just  believe  it  ;  and  that  *s  all 
there  is  about  it !  "  This  is  assurance.  God 
says  he  will  save  me  if  I  trust  Christ. 
I  do  trust  him  (I  surely  know  that  much 
about  myself),  and  I  know  he  will  keep  his 
word.  That  is  the  "  assurance  of  faith,"  and 
it  is  the  only  kind  of  assurance  the  Bible 
offers  me.  The  modern  "  Master,  we  would 
see  a  sign  from  thee,"  is  to  look  for  visions 
and  trances  and  wondrous  ecstatic  feelings, 
and  to  rely  on  these. 


INDIFFERENCE. 


PEOPLE  often  wish  they  had  "  more  con- 
viction of  sin."  Jesus  says  the  Holy 
Spirit  "  will  convict  the  world  in  respect  of 
sin  "  (Revision),  and  they  wonder  why  the 
Spirit  is  in  some  way  neglecting  his  duty 
with  them.  "If  the  Holy  Spirit  would  only 
convict  us  of  sin  ! "  We  are  "  so  cold  and 
indifferent." 

You  are  quite  cold  and  indifferent,  you 
say  ? 

**  Yes,  perfectly  cold  and  dead  ;  frozen  up. 
Oh,  if  I  could  only  be  thawed  out !  " 

Now,  if  the  Holy  Spirit  began  to  work 
with  you,  as  just  now  you  wished  he  would, 
where  do  you  think  he  would  begin  ? 

"  Why,  he  would  begin  to  make  me  mourn 
over  my  sins,  to  weep  and  pray,  and  lead  me 
to  accept  Christ's  pardon  and  grace." 

He  would  not,  probably,  do  all  these  things 


i6 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


at  once.  He  would  give  you  one  lesson  and 
insist  on  your  learning  that  before  he  gave 
you  another.  Is  not  that  what  you  would 
do  with  a  scholar  you  were  teaching } 

"  Yes." 

Well,  he  has  given  you  o«e  important 
lesson  —  that  you  are  this  moment  guilty  of 
a  great  sin.  God  has  done  so  much  for  you, 
and  yet  you  have  no  gratitude  for  him. 
Christ  has  died  for  your  sins  and  yet  you 
do  not  trust  him.  Christ  loves  you,  and  yet 
you  refuse  to  love  him.  He  is  warm  toward 
you,  and  yet  you  are  cold  toward  him.  Your 
coldness  and  indifference  is  your  sin.  The 
Holy  Spirit  convinces  you  of  that.  Go  to 
Christ  with  your  sin,  confess  it ,  forsake  it, 
and  be  pardoned  for  it. 

Now  if,  in  respect  to  this  life  there  is 
something  very  important  told  you,  you  don't 
stop  to  think  of  your  feelings  about  it. 
Feelings  are  not  consulted  in  the  matter. 
It  is  a  matter  of  its  being  false  or  being  true. 
If  it  is  true,  you  will  rejoice ;  if  not,  you  will 


INDIFFERENCE. 


17 


not.  And  you  seek  for  the  evidences.  But 
the  evidences  are  not  in  you ;  they  are  in  the 
facts.  Just  so  in  spiritual  things.  The  Bible 
professes  to  have  good  news  for  you.  Your 
anxiety  should  not  be  about  your  feelings, 
but  about  the  evidences  of  truth  in  the 
news.  If  Christ  has  died  for  you,  believe  it 
and  rejoice.  And  if  you  do  not  seem  to 
be  sure  about  that  fact,  for  the  sake  of  your 
eternal  interest  and  for  the  sake  of  Christ 
himself,  whose  honor  is  involved,  investigate 
its  truth  at  once. 


1? 


I  if 

4 


n 


I 


v. 

I 


CHRIST'S  ROBE. 


A  SOLDIER  might  still  be  a  soldier, 
though  he  had  no  uniform  given 
him,  but  was  dressed  like  a  citizen,  and 
every  soldier  according  to  his  own  fancy. 
But  a  Christian  can  not  be  a  useful 
and  accepted  Christian  without  Christ's 
robe.  There  are  many  advantages  in  having 
soldiers  in  a  distinctive  garb.  They  are  known 
to  be  soldiers.  Each  one  is  known  to  belong 
to  such  and  such  a  regiment  or  arm  of  the 
service;  and  the  men  themselves  feel  that 
their  uniform  is  an  authority  and  a  protection. 
So  **  putting  on  Christ,"  that  is,  becoming  a 
professed  Christian,  is  a  great  advantage  to 
the  believer.  It  reminds  him  of  what  he  is 
and  it  encourages  others.  But  the  principal 
sense  in  which  it  is  to  be  understood,  is  our 
taking  Christ  for  our  moral  character  in  which 
to  stand  before  God. 

i8 


r>3 


ii 


CHRISrS  ROBE. 


19 


Justification  is  an  acquittal  from  guilt. 
Paul  says  :  "  By  whom  ye  have  now  received 
the  atonement ; "  that  is,  putting  on  Christ 
for  our  justification.  It  is  an  acceptance 
of  us  as  righteous.  Now  we  have  no  good- 
ness or  righteousness  of  our  own;  it  is 
all  Christ's.  And  when  God  looks  at  us  he 
wants  to  see  if  we  have  Christ's  righteous- 
ness, just  as  a  commander  looks  at  a  man,  and 
knows  by  his  having  on  the  uniform  that  he 
is  one  of  his  soldiers.  So  God  knows  Christ's 
robe  wherever  he  sees  it.  It  may  be  on  my 
unworthy  shoulders,  but  if  it  is  Christ's  robe, 
and  I  am  wearing  it,  I  am  accepted  for  the 
sake  of  him  who  has  given  me  the  robe 
to  wear. 

Hear  a  little  parable.  There  was  a  beauti- 
ful city,  and  a  good  king  reigned  there, 
and  all  the  people  in  it  were  very  happy. 
But  it  was  pure  as  well  as  happy,  and  it  was 
happy  because  it  was  pure.  And  the  law  of 
the  city  was  that  no  one  who  was  unworthy 
should  come  in  there.   Outside  one  of  the  gates 


20 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


a  poor  man  sat  on  a  stone.  He  often  could 
see  in  a  little,  when  the  gate  was  opened ;  but 
he  was  afraid  to  try  to  go  in,  for  he  knew  he 
was  not  worthy.  The  prince,  the  king's  son, 
took  a  walk  out  and  saw  this  poor  man  sitting, 
and  spoke  kindly  to  him.  He  asked  him  if 
he  would  like  to  go  in.  He  said.  Yes,  only 
he  was  not  worthy ;  and  so  it  was  against  the 
law  for  him  to  go  in. 

"Well,"  said  the  prince,  "I  am  worthy, 
and  any  body  I  take  in  will  be  accepted  and 
considered  as  worthy,  if  he  is  in  my  company. 
So  come  with  me." 

So  the  poor  man  got  up,  and  the  prince 
put  his  arm  around  him  and  flung  one  corner 
of  his  princely  robe  over  the  man's  shoulders, 
so  that  the  one  robe  covered  them  both  ;  and 
thus  they  went  towards  the  gate.  And 
when  the  keepers  of  the  gate  saw  them 
coming,  they  sent  word  to  the  king  that 
"the  prince  was  coming,  and  he  had  with 
him  a  man  who  was  not  worthy."  And  the 
king  gave  orders  to  "  admit  both  the  prince 


CHRISTS  ROBE. 


21 


and  any  man  the  prince  had  with  him ;  for 
his  worthiness  made  the  other  worthy." 

We  need  not  be  afraid  that  God  will  fail 
to  recognize  the  robe  of  Christ  wherever  he 
sees  it.  Jacob  knew  Joseph's  coat  when  it 
came  home  to  him  dabbled  in  blood.  "  It  is 
my  son's  coat !  "  he  cried.  The  father  of 
Lord  William  Russell  knew  the  headless 
body  of  his  son,  it  is  said,  as  he  stood  by  his 
coflfin,  and  said  :  "  I  would  not  give  my  dead 
son  for  the  living  son  of  any  man  in  Chris- 
tendom." After  Richard  Cameron  had  fallen 
at  Ayrs-moss,  and  his  head  and  hands,  before 
they  were  nailed  up  over  the  gates  of  Edin- 
burgh, were  brought  in  to  his  old  father,  who 
was  in  prison  for  conscience'  sake, — with  a 
purpose  thus  to  add  to  his  misery,  —  and  he  was 
asked  if  he  knew  whose  they  were,  he  took 
them  tenderly  in  his  hands  and  said :  "  They 
are  my  dear  son's.  God  has  been  very  mer- 
ciful to  me  and  mine." 

And  if  it  is  thus  with  human  fathers,  will 
God  see  his  Son's  robe  on  us,  and  not  know 
it  and  not  accept  it } 


THE    CITY   LIETH    FOUR-SQUARE. 


PROBABLY  the  principal  idea  to  be 
gathered  from  the  city's  lying  four- 
square is  the  perfection  and  symmetry  of 
its  plan.  It  all  existed  in  God's  thought 
from  eternity,  perfect  and  holy,  and  need- 
ing no  additions  or  "improvements"  like 
cities  of  man's  building.  And  the  three 
gates  on  every  side  may  remind  us  of  the 
sanctuary  in  the  wilderness  in  the  center  of 
the  camp,  with  three  tribes  encamped  on 
each  side  of  it  —  an  ancient  suggestion  of 
heaven  ;  for  Dr.  Binney  was  right  when  he 
said  that  "  all  Old  Testament  facts  were 
doctrines ; "  and  all  nations  and  people  of 
the  earth  may  equally  come  into  it  and 
on  the  same  terms. 

But  perhaps  for  a  moment  we  might  put 
a  finer  point  upon  it  still,  and  say  that  you 
may  come  to  God  from  all  the  various  sides 


83 


THE   CITY  LIETH  FOUR-SQUARE.     .  23 


of  human  experience  and  feeling.  You  may 
come  in  at  the  east  gates,  with  the  morning 
sun  upon  you,  in  all  the  fresh  and  joyous 
feelings  of  a  consecrated  youth.  And  happy 
are  they  who  thus  come.  What  a  pity  to 
give  the  best  of  our  youth  to  the  world,  when 
it  might  have  been  given  to  God  !  It  is 
a  mistake  and  a  loss  which  we  find,  all  our 
life,  can  never  be  fully  repaired. 

Or  you  may  come  in  at  the  south  gates, 
led  by  the  fervid  warmth  of  your  emotions. 
Mary,  she  of  the  alabaster  box,  came  thus. 
Many  people  do  thus  enter  by  the  south 
gates  ;  more  than  by  the  north.  Our  warm 
emotions  were  given  us  for  the  very  purpose 
that  they  should  rise  up  toward  God,  as  the 
fire  ascends  towards  the  sun.  And  if  we 
begin  to  be  so  full  of  love  to  God  that 
we  can  not  keep  away  from  him,  we  shall  be 
glad  that  the  south  gates  are  so  invitingly 
near  and  so  easy  of  access. 

Or  you  may  enter  by  the  north  gates,  cool 
and  intellectual,  compelled  to  believe  by  the 


24 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


h 


\% 


i 


It 


■;  ;■ 


overwhelming  evidence  presented  that  "  Jesus 
is  the  Christ."  Some  men  who  thus  come  to 
God  are  very  strong  in  faith.  As  the  Holy 
Spirit,  working  through  their  reason,  has 
compelled  them  to  believe,  so  nothing  short 
of  overturning  their  reason  can  loosen  their 
hold  on  Christ. 

Or  you  may  enter  by  the  sunset  gates, 
turning  back,  as  it  were,  almost,  but  not  quite, 
too  late  :  your  whole  life  a  long  day  of  wan- 
dering, but  getting  home  at  last.  The  whole 
path  in  error ;  the  last  turning  only  right.  How 
touching  is  the  testimony  of  some  who  have 
thus  come  to  God  in  old  age !  How  anxious 
to  make  the  most  of  the  time  that  is  left,  and 
to  warn  others  to  avoid  their  mistake,  and  to 
come  in  on  the  eastern  side,  as  the  worshipers 
entered  the  temple  of  old. 

But  thanks  be  to  God,  the  street  from  every 
gate  leads  to  the  dazzling  center  —  the  throne 
of  God !  There  is  the  same  salvation,  the 
same  mercy,  and  the  same  grace,  come  when 
you  will.     Only,  it  is  present  rebellion  and 


THE   CITY  LIETH  FOUR-SQUARE.       25 

present  sin  not  to  come  at  once  ;  and  there  is 
eternal  danger  in  the  delay.  The  east  gates 
would  not  have  been  opened  if  it  had  been 
none  of  your  duty  to  enter  thereby ;  and  to 
pass  by  them  is  to  run  the  risk  of  never 
entering  the  City  at  all. 


THE  JUBILEE. 


WHETHER  it  was  every  forty -nine 
years  or  every  fifty  years  did  not  so 
much  matter  to  the  poor  Hebrew,  a§  to  know 
that  it  was  sure  to  come  at  the  right  time.  I 
think,  however,  it  was  every  forty-nin:^  years. 
Every  seven  years  came  the  Sabbatic  year, 
the  year  of  rest ;  and  every  seven  Sabbatic 
years  brought  round  the  great  Sabbatic 
year,  the  Jubilee. 

The  land  all  went  back  to  the  old  proprie- 
tors ;  and  it  taught  the  people  that  the  land 
was  God's.  This  family  or  that  family  might 
have  it  for  their  "  inheritance  ;  *'  but  after 
all,  they  only  "occupied"  it  under  the  great 
Proprietor.  How  a  pious  Hebrew  would 
think  : "  My  ancestor  had  this  little  farm  given 
to  him  by  Joshua,  hundreds  of  years  ago. 
God  has  restored  it  to  me,  and  will  give  it  to 
my  children  after  me.     The  earth  is  Jeho- 

86 


THE  JUBILEE. 


27 


vah's,  and  the  fullness  thereof.*'  When 
William  Rufus  of  England  was  found  dead 
in  New  Forest,  we  read  in  history  that  a 
woodman  named  Purkis  took  the  body  in 
his  cart  to  Winchester.  And  Henry  I  gave 
him,  as  a  reward,  two  acres  of  ground  where 
his  cottage  stood  in  the  forest.  And  a  very 
dear  friend  of  mine,  the  Rev.  George  Purkis, 
tells  me  that  small  estate  of  two  acres  has 
been  for  eight  hundred  years  in  the  family, 
and  is  in  the  family  still.  He  himself  is  a 
direct  descendant  of  the  old  woodman,  and  a 
near  relative  of  the  present  owner.  Christ 
says :  "  The  meek  shall  inherit  the  earth  ;  " 
not  inherit  the  world,  the  globe,  but  the 
land^  the  "  soil,"  the  portions  of  their  fathers 
before  them.  "  They  shall  not  be  rooted  out 
of  the  soil." 

And  the  bondmen  were  all  set  free.  Many 
a  time  it  would  happen  that  a  man  would  get  so 
much  **  behind  "  that  he  saw  no  possible  way 
of  getting  out  of  debt  and  still  preserve 
his  liberty.      Think  of  the  poor  widow  who 


28 


THE  PRINT  OF  JUS  SHOE. 


\\  , 


came  to  Elisha:  "Thy  servant,  my  husband, 
is  dead.  And  thou  knowest  thy  servant  did 
fear  the  Lord.  And  the  creditor  is  come  to 
take  unto  him  my  two  sons  to  be  bondmen." 
Thus  it  must  often  have  been  in  old  times. 
But  how  they  would  count  the  years,  then 
the  months,  then  the  days,  till  the  year 
of  Jubilee  came  in  ! 

The  Roman  law  had  far  less  mercy  than 
the  Hebrew  law.  The  third  of  the  twelve 
tables  of  the  Roman  law  provided  that  if  a 
man  was  sued  for  debt  before  a  judge,  he 
should  have  thirty  days  to  make  up  the 
money.  If  he  did  not,  or  could  not,  the  cred- 
itor could  throw  him  into  prison  for  sixty 
days.  He  must,  however,  give  him  one  pound 
of  flour  daily  to  live  on.  And  during  this 
period  of  sixty  days,  proclamation  must  be 
made  on  two  several  market-days,  stating 
the  circumstances ;  so  that,  if  he  had  any 
friends  they  might  come  forward  and  release 
him.  At  the  end  of  the  sixty  days,  if  no  one 
appeared  to  pay  his  debt,  he  was  handed  over 


THE    JUBILEE. 


29 


I) 


to  the  creditor,  who  could  either  kill  him  or 
make  him  a  slave.  It  was  a  terrible  thing,  in 
those  days,  to  be  in  debt  and  have  nothing 
to  pay.  Just  the  position,  exactly,  the  sinner 
is  in  with  respect  to  his  sins  in  the  matter  of 
God's  broken  law. 

Now,  not  all  the  bondmen  would  be  equally 
miserable.  Some  would  be  well  fed,  and  only 
moderate  work  exacted  from  them.  We  might 
speak  to  such  a  slave  and  say  :  — 

"  You  have  good  food  and  are  well  lodged 
and  kindly  treated.  Why  can't  you  be  con- 
tent t " 

"  Oh,"  he  would  say,  "I  am  a  slave.  I 
must  live  and  die  away  from  my  family  and 
my  home." 

And  so  the  poor  slave  of  Satan  can  not  be 
content,  however  "well  off"  he  may  seem  to 
be.  When  God  made  the  soul  he  put  a  spark 
of  heavenly  patriotism  in  it ;  and  it  never 
**  can  sing  the  Lord's  song  in  a  strange  land." 
And  on  behalf  of  every  enslaved  sinner  we 
thank  God  for  that.  The  sinner  will  do  it 
for  himself  when  he  is  converted. 


3° 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


And  notice,  too,  that  the  year  of  Jubilee 
began  on  the  day  of  atonement.  First  par- 
don, and  then  blessing ;  first  the  atonement 
for  sin,  and  then  freedom  from  sin.  "  If  the 
Son  therefore  shall  make  you  free,  ye  shall  be 
free  indeed." 

It  was  all  a  beautifully  acted  parable,  or 
object  lesson,  to  teach  God's  ways  of  dealing 
with  poor  sinners,  and  so  wisely  arranged 
that  it  conferred  a  great  incidental  blessing 
in  the  meantime. 


MY  WILL,   WHICH   IS   MYSELF. 


MY  will  is  myself.  And  when  I  com- 
plain that  my  will  is  opposed  to  God, 
it  simply  means,  if  I  take  its  true  meaning, 
that  I  make  myself  God's  enemy.  My  will 
is  not  something  distinct  from  myself,  but 
the  inner  principle,  the  soul,  the  mind.  The 
will  is  the  ego:  tha»:  which  constitutes  my 
personality.  But  my  feelings  or  emotions 
are  not  myself.  They  belong  to  me  —  as  my 
clothes  belong  to  me  —  but  they  are  not  I. 
My  will  is  myself ;  and  I  can  and  ought  to 
control  myself.  But  I  can  not  always  control 
my  feelings  and  emotions.  Especially  are 
they  rebellious  when  I  would  claim  them  all 
and  fully  for  Christ  and  his  service.  What, 
then,  shall  I  do }  Shall  I  sit  down  and  wait, 
as  others  do,  "till  I  can  feel  more  deeply".? 
or  "till  I  get  my  feelings  all  right".?  Let 
me  answer  by  an  illustration  :  — 


3« 


32 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE, 


A  city  had  rebelled  against  a  good  and 
paternal  king.  He  came  to  besiege  it.  It 
had  a  citadel  (so  thought)  which  commanded 
and  dominated  the  city.  Whoever  possessed 
the  citadel  held  the  city.  The  commander 
of  this  city  and  fortress  determined  to  sur- 
render. He  treated  with  the  king.  One 
morning  the  royal  standard  was  seen  floating 
over  the  citadel.  The  royal  troops  were  in 
possession.  The  king  was  there  and  was 
just  issuing  a  proclamation  of  amnesty  or 
pardon.  The  citizens  were  furious:  "They 
had  been  betrayed ! "  The  rabble  was  de- 
termined to  "  carry  on  the  war.**  The  king 
does  not  reproach  the  commander  for  not 
having  taken  counsel  of  the  citizens,  or  for 
not  winning  over  the  rabble  to  his  views  be- 
fore surrendering  the  fortress.  "I  knew  I 
could  not  bring  the  rabble  over,"  said  the 
late  commander  to  the  king,  "  and  so  I  took 
no  counsel  with  them.  I  could  surrender  the 
fortress,  and  that  I  did.  Thou  must  put 
down  the  rabble  !  "     A  year  later  we  visit  the 


MY   WIJ.Ly   WHICH  IS  MYSELF. 


33 


city,  and  all  is  quiet.  The  unruly  populace 
is  loyal  and  peaceable.  They  found  that 
when  the  citadel  was  given  up,  it  was  in  vain 
to  think  of  further  resistance. 

That  citadel  is  my  soul,  my  inner  self, 
my  will.  I  can  not  bring  my  feelings  (the 
** rabble")  into  subjection;  but  Christ  can. 
I  can,  however,  surrender  to  him  the  cita- 
del, the  soul ;  and  he  will  bring  my  feelings 
and  emotions  into  complete  subjection.  Bet- 
ter than  any  possible  control  of  mine, 

For  Christ  to  come 

And  make  his  home 

In  the  poor  dwelling  of  my  soul! 

Try  it,  dear  friend,  try  it !  Give  Christ 
your  will.  And  when  you  surrender  your 
will,  which  is  surrendering  yourself,  —  with- 
out first  waiting  to  get  your  feelings,  your 
emotions,  all  right,  —  your  emotions  will,  of 
necessity,  soon  follow.  We  have  all  often 
done  what  we  did  not  feel  inclined  to  do; 
and  have  done  it  just  because  it  was  right 


34 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


and  proper  to  do  it ;  and  we  soon  found  that 
we  began  to  like  it  better  as  we  continued 
it.  The  will  must  rule  the  emotions,  not  the 
emotions  control  the  will.  "Give  me  thine 
heart ! "  that  is  the  command. 


THE  CONSCIENCE. 


THE  conscience  is  God's  consul  in  the 
soul.  I  see  a  foreign  flag  flying  in  one 
of  our  cities,  and  I  learn  that  the  foreign 
consul  lives  there.  That  house  is,  by  the 
unwritten  law  of  nations,  a  part  of  the  foreign 
country.  No  legal  process  from  our  courts 
runs  there.  The  consul  came  from  his  own 
country  and  is  amenable  only  to  his  own  coun- 
try's laws.  Man's  soul  was  originally  an  ema- 
nation from  God,  and  that  department  of  its 
action  that  we  call  conscience  seems  to  be 
the  only  part  of  it  that  still  retains  a  memory 
of  the  lost  communion  of  Eden. 

In  Brock's  Life  of  Havelock  we  are  told 
of  a  former  British  "  resident "  in  Cashmere. 
The  people  were  very  unfriendly  and  suspi- 
cious and,  as  if  to  bring  trouble  to  a  crisis, 
the  rajah  died,  and  several  of  his  wives  deter- 
mined to  obtain  heaven    by  being  burned 


35 


36 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


alive  upon  their  husband's  funeral  pile.  The 
treaty  with  the  British  was  such  that  the 
consent  of  the  resident  must  first  be  ob- 
tained before  the  suttee  could  take  place  ;  and 
the  already  exasperated  populace  was  ready 
to  break  out  into  violence  and  murder,  if  that 
consent  were  even  delayed.  The  resident 
had  no  troops  and  was  sick  in  bed ;  he  had 
no  helper  but  God.  He  calmly  expostulated 
with  the  deputation  that  waited  on  him ; 
told  them  that  even  in  their  own  most  an- 
cient religious  books  such  practices  were 
condemned  ;  that  they  would  offend  the  Brit- 
ish government,  whom  it  was  their  interest 
to  please ;  and  that  the  thing  was  wrong 
of  itself.  And  then,  like  Luther  at  the  Diet 
of  Worms,  he  was  ready  to  say :  "  God  help 
me  !  I  can  do  no  more  !  *'  But  the  resident 
was  not  murdered,  the  populace  did  not 
break  out,  and  the  women  were  not  burned. 
God  was  there. 

Conscience  is  that  resident  in  the  liomaii. 
of  the  soul.     We  have  not  two  spiritual  enti- 


THE    CONSCIENCE. 


37 


ties  within  us  —  the  soul  and  the  conscience. 
We  have  but  one  immaterial  part,  which 
we  call  variously  the  soul,  the  spirit,  or  the 
mind.  And  the  conscience  is  but  the  soul 
in  one  department  of  its  action.  I  see  an 
elderly  gentleman  walking  the  street  and 
attending  to  ordinary  matters  of  business. 
To-day  he  is  but  a  citizen.  Yesterday, 
however,  he  was  a  judge.  I  saw  him  in 
court  hearing  and  deciding  causes.  To-mor- 
row he  is  announced  to  preside  at  a  meeting 
of  learned  men,  and  will  for  the  time  be  a 
philosopher.  But  it  is  the  same  man  in  a'' 
these  different  positions.  So  with  my  soul : 
it  is  the  same,  but  variously  engaged.  When 
my  soul  becomes  an  historian  and  recalls 
the  past,  I  call  it  memory ;  when  it  becomes 
a  seer  and  peers  into  the  western  sky,  where 
the  evening  clouds  of  this  life  are  golden 
with  a  reflected  radiance,  —  from  whence,  I 
can  not  see,  —  I  call  it  hope  ;  when  my  soul 
is  stirred  up  to  think  of  others  rather  than 
myself, — to  see  with  others'  eyes  and  feel  with 


38 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE, 


Others'  hearts  and  live  with  others'  lives,  —  I 
call  it  love.  And  when  the  soul  becomes  a 
judge  and  sits  in  review  upon  its  own  actions, 
and  bound,  as  every  good  judge  is,  by  the 
law,  and  not  by  consanguinity  to  the  offender, 
we  call  it  conscience. 


,— I 

pies  a 
ions, 

If  the 
uder, 


JCX 


ACTED   PARABLES. 


WITHOUT  a  parable  spake  he  not  to 
them,"  we  are  told  of  Christ.  And 
again :  "  When  he  was  alone,  he  expounded 
all  things  to  his  disciples."  But  Jesus  some- 
times taught  by  acted  parables,  as  well  as 
spoken  parables.  Probably  we  are  to  take 
that  as  an  acted  parable  (Mark  8),  where 
Jesus  led  the  blind  man  out  of  the  town  and 
restored  his  sight  gradually.  And  the  curs- 
ing of  the  barren  fig-tree  was  an  acted  para- 
ble to  teach  faith. 

And  I  have  no  doubt  that  Christ  repeated 
his  parables  over  and  over  again,  as  occasion 
required.  I  know  that  Moody  repeated  anec- 
dotes in  America,  and  afterwards  the  same 
in  Edinburgh ;  then  in  London,  and  then  in 
America  again.  And  by  that  time  people 
were  reading  them  in  a  book,  somebody  hav- 
ing gathered  them  from  his  oral  utterances. 


39 


40 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


% 

¥•■■ 


And  some  one  might  say :  "  Ah,  I  heard  him 
give  that  anecdote ;  but  there  was  more  of  it 
— a  sequel,  which  is  not  given  here.  I  like  it 
better  as  I  heard  it."  And  yet  the  stenog- 
rapher was  perfectly  correct  who  reported 
it.  He  reported  it  as  he  heard  it ;  and  the 
other  man  remembered  it  as  he  heard  it. 
This  will  explain  most  of  the  alleged  discre- 
pancies in  the  Gospels. 

The  parable  of  the  marriage  supper  has  in 
Matthew  a  sequel  which  is  wanting  in  Luke. 
Why  is  it  necessary  for  us  to  decide  that 
Jesus  used  this  parable  only  once,  or  always 
gave  it  exactly  the  same.^  In  Matthew's 
sequel,  which  may  be  called  "  The  Sifting  of 
the  Guests,"  there  is  a  deep  lesson  for  us  as 
to  the  way  we  come  to  God.  We  can  not 
come  on  any  ground  personal  to  ourseb'es ; 
it  must  be  wholly  on  the  ground  of  Christ's 
worthiness :  we  must  have  on  the  "  weddin*]: 
garment."  The  first  part  of  the  parable 
shows  how  men  wickedly  put  off  obeying  and 
coming  to  God ;  and  also,  how  the  poorest,  the 


ACTED  PARABLES. 


41 


most  despised,  and  the  most  unlikely  are 
bidden  and  exhorted  to  come.  Sometimes 
there  would  be  more  need  for  the  one  part 
of  the  parable,  and  sometimes  for  the  other ; 
for  I  have  iio  doubt  it  was  often  repeated. 

Having  repeated  in  a  meeting  an  anec 
dote  of  a  man  who  went  to  Perth  to  do  some 
work  for  the  Lord,  in  the  hearing  of  a  minis- 
ter now  deceased,  this  brother  called  out  to 
me  in  another  meeting ;  "  Tell  us  about  the 
man  who  went  to  Perth  ;  '*  and  I  gave  it  again. 
So  it  comes  to  pass  with  every  public  teacher. 

And  we  may  learn  this  too :  that  Jesus 
would  not  only  have  us  understand  his  para- 
bles, spoken  and  acted,  but  he  gives  them  to 
us  as  examples  of  what  can  be  done  by  illus- 
trative teaching ;  and  we  have  the  liberty, 
and  by  experience  find  the  advantage,  of 
making  parables  and  bringing  forward  illus- 
trations on  every  hand. 


READING  BETWEEN  THE   LINES. 


(( 


WHAT  does  that  mean,  papa?"  said 
little  Edwin.  "  I  can't  see  any  thing 
between  the  lines  but  white  paper." 

**  It  means,"  said  his  father,  "that  you 
must  understand  what  the  words  are  written 
for.  Now,  intelligent  children  will  often 
know  the  meaning  of  the  words  well  enough, 
and  yet  not  know  why  the  author  wrote  the 
words.  Knowing  that  may  be  said  to  be 
reading  *  between  the  lines.'  Or,  sometimes 
there  is  a  deeper,  further  meaning  than  ap- 
pears on  the  surface :  there  is  something  you 
have  to  gather  which  is  not  spoken,  and  that 
is  reading  'between  the  lines.'  " 

"Our  lesson  next  Sunday  is  the  parable 
of  the  sower.  Now,  is  there  any  thing  *  be- 
tween the  lines  there '  ? " 

"  Why,  our  Lord  tells  you  himself  what  it 
all  means." 

4a 


READING  BET  WE  FN   THE  LINES. 


43 


said 


'*  Oh,  yes,  I  know ;  but  that  was  maybe  for 
the  Jews,  or  the  people  in  old  times.  But  if 
Jesus  were  speaking  it  now,  or  explaining  it 
right  in  our  Bible  class,  I  wonder  what  he 
would  say ! " 

"  Well,  suppose  I  Iry  to  read  between  the 
lines  of  that  parable.  Suppose  the  blessed 
Master  were  sitting  here  and  telling  us  what 
the  parable  meant ;  perhaps  he  would  say 
something  like  this  :  — 

"THE   PARABLE   OF   THE   SOWER." 

"A  preacher  went  out  to  preach,  and  as 
he  preached,  some  of  his  good  words  reached 
a  number  of  boys ;  but  they  were  thinking 
about  their  fun  and  paid  no  attention ;  and 
when  they  got  home,  they  could  n't  remember 
where  the  text  nor  the  reading  was,  nor  what 
the  preacher  had  been  saying.  And  so  the 
preaching  did  them  no  good. 

"And  some  of  his  words  reached  som^ 
other  boys,  and  they  thought  they  would 
try  and  be  good  and  religious,   and  would 


44 


THE  PRINT  OF  IIIS  SHOE. 


pray  and  love  Jesus  just  as  the  preacher  ad- 
vised. But  when,  after  two  or  three  days, 
the  other  boys  found  out  they  would  not 
bluster  and  fight,  and  use  bad  words  and  do 
mischief  at  night,  they  began  to  mock  them, 
and  call  them  names,  and  work  spiteful  tricks 
on  them.  And  the  boys  who  thought  they 
would  try  to  be  good  got  angry,  and  seemed 
ashamed  to  be  caught  *  being  good,*  and  in 
less  than  two  weeks  were  just  as  bad  as  any 
of  the  other  boys.  They  left  off  trying  to 
follow  Jesus  just  because  somebody  laughed 
at  them. 

"And  some  of  the  preacher's  words  fell 
among  the  men  and  women  who  were  very 
full  of  business  and  cares.  And  the  men 
said :  *  We  must  attend  to  our  souls,'  and  the 
women  said :  *  It  is  of  more  importance  to  be 
saved  than  to  be  fashionable.'  And  the 
preacher  thought  there  was  going  to  be  a 
great  revival  and  many  converts  ;  for  they 
began  to  come  to  the  prayer-meetings,  and 
some  of  them  took  pews  in  the  church,  and 


READING  BETWEEN   THE  LINES. 


45 


a  few  became  members  of  the  church.  But 
the  men  said :  *  A  man  can't  do  business 
on  Christian  principles;'  and  the  women 
said  :  *  It  was  impossible  to  be  in  society,  and 
take  care  of  one's  house  and  family,  and  be 
religious  too.'  And  their  religion  all  seemed 
to  fade  out,  though  they  did  not  all  give  up 
their  pews.  And  when  the  preacher  died,  he 
said  he  hoped  he  should  meet  some  of  them 
in  heaven  ;  but  he  was  not  quite  sure.' 

**  And  some  of  the  preacher's  words  fell  on 
the  ears  of  some  boys  and  girls  and  men  and 
women  who  were  sick  of  sin,  and  tired  of 
being  enemies  of  God.  And  they  took  his 
advice  and  went  that  very  day  to  Christ  in 
prayer,  and  said  to  him  :  *  O  Lord  Jesus  !  We 
don't  want  to  love  sin  any  more.  We  want 
to  be  thine.  From  this  hour  we  will  be  thy 
willing  servants  forever.  We  give  ourselves 
away  to  thee.  Save  us  ! '  And  people  soon 
found  out  that  they  were  Christians.  At 
first  some  tried  to  laugh  at  them ;  but  they 
remembered  that  people  laughed  and  mocked 


46 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


at  Christ  and  he  did  not  get  angry  at  it.  And 
some  of  them  went  away  as  missionaries  ;  and 
still  more  of  them  did  good  missionary  work 
at  home  and  in  their  families.  And  all  of 
them  gained  wisdom,  though  few  of  them 
gained  fame.  And  when  their  neighbors  who 
had  mocked  at  them  got  sick,  they  sent  for 
these  Christian  friends  to  come  and  pray 
with  them.  And  when  they  died,  the  world 
around  them  said  they  were  good  men  and 
women  —  the  salt  of  the  earth.  And  some 
did  more  than  others ;  but  all  did  something 
for  Christ.'* 


ENLISTING  WITH   CHRIST. 

^NCE    in  talking  with  an  old  soldier 
O^'f  ^sked  him  the  circumstances  of  h.s 

^  ,,ic,ment.     I  said  :  ,.„  the  recruiting 

"^^"'frory'u   could  you  properly 
officer  got  hoUof^  you.  J^.^^,,,. 

-rOh^^Telaid^'-I  suppose  when  I  took 
the  shiUing  and  was  sworn  m.^^^  ^^^^  ^^^ 
"That  IS  It,     1     T"  the  articles  of  war ; 
enlisted ;  y^/^J^f  L^wS  have  been 
r'TbaS     iuTtelfme.  Did  you  , know 
brought  bacK.  tidier' s  duties?" 

any  thing,  as  yet  of  a  sol     _^  ^^^^^^ 

"  Why,  no,    he  rephed.  ^^^  ^ 

of  the  drill,  or  any  th  "S  ^^^^^  ^^  ^egin 

raw  recruit;  but  now  ^tw^^^^^^^ 

-;;;t'ro?-vt^:^-term:;;:h: 

with  the  Christian  soldier.    The  mome 

47 


48 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


11. !  I' 


surrenders  his  soul  to  Christ  and  believes 
and  trusts  him,  he  is  a  Christian.  He  has 
enlisted.  It  is  true  he  does  not  know  how 
to  pray  connectedly,  or  to  read  the  Script- 
ures with  understanding,  or  to  help  others, 
or  to  combat  the  enemy,  or  a  hundred  other 
things  a  Christian  oug^t  to  do ;  he  does  not 
know  the  drill  yet.  Still,  he  is  a  soldier, 
and  he  is  going  to  learn  the  whole  duty  of  a 
Christian  soldier,  and  to  begin  at  once.  But, 
meanwhile,  he  is  one  of  the  army.  He  has 
been  sworn  in  ;  his  name  is  down  on  the 
books  ;  and  the  Great  Commander  recognizes 
him  as  his." 


.    CROSSING  THE  RED  SEA. 


I  HAVE  much  sympathy  with  those  who 
are  sometimes  sneered  at  as  '*  finding 
something  spiritual  in  every  pin  of  the  tab- 
ernacle ; "  for  I  believe  with  Paul  that  these 
were  all  "ensamples"  of  heavenly  things. 
Take  the  passage  of  the  Red  Sea  and  the 
desert  journey.  The  crossing  of  the  Red 
Sea  completely  cut  off  the  Israelites  from 
their  former  life  and  from  the  land  of  their 
bondage.  Through  all  their  generations  it 
was  looked  back  upon  as  the  crisis  and  be- 
ginning of  their  affairs  as  a  nation.  They 
were  before  that  but  a  host  of  fugitives  ;  now 
they  were  a  migratory  nation.  And  they 
were  not  out  of  Egypt  till  they  did  cross  the 
Red  Sea.  Their  faces  were  desert -wise,  but 
they  were  not  yet  free  in  the  desert.  They 
still    trod    the   soil    of    the    land    of    their 


49 


«       I 


50 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE, 


i  I  ! 


captivity.  Once  the  crossing,  and  all  that 
was  changed. 

How  like  the  Christian  experience !  The 
poor  sinner  may  have  been  turning  his  back 
upon  his  sins,  and  endeavoring  to  escape 
from  them  ;  but  he  is  not  safe,  nor  in  circum- 
stances to  sing  his  song  of  deliverance,  till  he 
stands  on  the  farther  shore  of  the  sea  and 
sees  Christ's  blood  between  him  and  his 
former  life.     That  is  his  Red  Sea. 

Nor  was  it  before  the  Israelites  crossed  the 
Red  Sea,  but  after  it,  that  they  were  led  to 
Sinai  to  learn  God's  law.  And  he  who  would 
learn  the  will  of  his  Father  in  heaven  must 
first  cross  the  Red  Sea ;  must  first  put 
Christ's  blood  between  him  and  his  former 
life :  then  he  will  be  prepared  to  learn 
and  love  God's  law.  When  Mr.  Legality 
would  have  Christian  go  to  Mount  Sinai 
first,  before  ever  he  had  entered  the  gate  of 
repentance,  the  poor  seeker  after  peace  was 
well-nigh  overwhelmed  with  the  lightnings 
and  the  earthquakes.     God  has  but  one  glori- 


CROSSING    THE  RED  SEA. 


51 


ous  path  to  Canaan  :  the  Red  Sea  first,  then 
the  law  at  Sinai,  the  desert  journey,  the 
Jordan,  the  Land  of  Promise !  Are  you 
sure  you  have  crossed  the  Red  Sea  ?  If  you 
have  not,  how  are  you  going  to  get  to 
Canaan  ? 


J 


lit 


ill 
hi- 


if 


I 


CHRIST  ALIVE. 


THE  first  Sunday  I  ever  spent  in  Eng- 
land was  at  Walthamstow,  a  few  miles 
north  of  London.  The  good  minister  in 
whose  house  I  was  to  pass  the  Sabbath  was 
called  out  of  the  room  on  the  Saturday 
evening,  to  see  some  one,  and  left  me  to 
amuse  myself  with  books  and  magazines  for 
half  an  hour.  When  he  returned  he  excused 
himself  for  leaving  me  so  long,  saying  I  would 
forgive  him  when  he  told  me  all  about  it.  It 
seemed  a  gentleman  in  the  neighborhood  had 
been  in  Italy  a  few  years  before,  and  brought 
back  with  him  an  Italian  body-servant.  This 
man  had  duties  to  attend  to  on  Sunday 
mornings,  but  was  always  present  at  public 
worship  in  the  afternoons.  **  You  will 
have  him  in  your  congregation  to-morrow 
afternoon,"  said  my  friend  ;  for  I  was  to  take 
his-place  in  the  afternoon,  while  he  should  go 


CHRIST  ALIVE. 


53 


out  to  preach  under  one  of  the  few  trees  now 
remaining  in  Epping  Forest  to  the  throngs  of 
Sabbath-idlers  who  came  down  from  London. 

The  Italian  had  been  thoughtful,  and  had 
finally  begun  to  indulge  a  hope  in  Christ 
Jesus.  He  had  come  to  the  minister  on  that 
Saturday  night,  and  in  his  broken  English 
told  him  his  tale. 

"  In  my  countree,"  said  he,  "  in  my  Italic, 
the  priests  always  show  us  Jesus  dying ;  Jesus 
on  the  cross  ;  Jesus  in  the  grave.  You  show 
me  Jesus  ^/m';  Jesus  love  me;  Jesus  think 
of  me ;  Jesus  in  heaven.  And  I  love  Jesus, 
and  I  thought  I  would  come  and  tell  you 
I  love  that  Jesus  who  is  alive." 

It  is  even  so.  While  our  sins  are  atoned 
for  by  his  sufferings  and  death,  let  us  remem- 
ber that  Christ's  death  is  always  connected 
with  his  resurrection ;  the  pledge  of  our 
rising  from  the  grave ;  the  evidence  of  the 
Father's  acceptance  of  his  substitution.  He 
lives  that  he  may  love  us,  and  we  need,  as 
the  Italian  did,  a  living  Christ,  to  love  us  and 
think  of  us  and  reign  over  us. 


ONE  THING  OR  THE  OTHER. 


s( 
n 
11 


WE  can  not  be  two  contradictory  things 
at  once.  We  can  not  be  the  inti- 
mates and  bosom  friends  of  bad  mer  and  be 
good  men  ourselves.  We  can  not  be  sepa- 
rate from  Christ  and  yet  be  acknowledged 
by  him  as  his.  We  can  not  pass  by  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  as  he  hangs  on  the  cross, 
and  join  the  mocking  crowd  that  wagged 
their  heads  and  reviled  him,  without  shutting 
ourselves  out,  at  the  same  time,  from  meeting 
him  in  paradise.  We  can  not  despise  God's 
mercy  without  at  the  same  time  daring  and 
provoking  God's  wrath. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  we  can  not  seek 
God's  mercy  without  at  the  same  time  putting 
away  all  trust  in  ourselves.  We  can  not 
hold  on  to  Christ  without  letting  go  every 
false    hope.     We    can    not    sincerely  seek 


54 


ONE    THING   OR    THE   OTHER. 


55 


pardon  without  hating  sin.  We  shall  not 
seek  God  without  finding  him.  We  shall 
not  find  God  without  at  the  same  time  find- 
ing peace,  happiness,  and  heaven. 


a;i 


■1  I 


I 

I 


i: 


!' 


I 


THINKING   IN    RIGHT   ORDER. 


IN  the  Old  Testament  prophecies,  the 
threatenings  are  sure  to  end  with  a  sweet 
promise.  And  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  thus 
taught  the  prophets,  teaches  us  in  the 
same  way  still.  It  is  easy  for  us  to  say  :  "  I 
am  a  great  sinner  ;  I  shall  surely  perish ! " 
Just  as  David  mistakenly  said  :  "  I  shall  now 
perish  one  day  by  the  hand  of  Saul."  And 
when  we  read  in  the  Word  of  a  great  Saviour 
it  is  still  easy  for  us  to  say  :  "  Yes,  a  great 
Saviour,  but  then  I  am  a  great  sinner." 
The  order  of  the  facts  in  the  Spirit's  teach- 
ing is  quite  different.  The  Spirit  reverses 
the  order :  "  You  are  a  great  sinner,  but 
you  have  a  great  Saviour." 

Where  there  is  an  element  of  hope  and 
an  element  of  despair,  it  makes  a  great 
difference  which  comes  last.  Don't  let  us 
look  for  the  fading  of  the  light  and    the 

56 


THINKING  IN  RIGHT  ORDER. 


57 


e 

I 

»» 


coming  of  the  darkness  ;  but  ralher  believe 
that  "  the  darkness  is  past,  and  the  true 
light  now  shineth."  **0  Israel,  thou  hast 
destroyed  thyself;  but  in  me  is  thine  help." 


d 

ir 

Lt 

>» 


JUSTIFICATION  AND   HOLINESS. 


i  S' 


I 


I  KNOW  not  where  I  could  lay  hold  of  a 
sharper  or  clearer  illustration  of  the  rela- 
tion between  justification  and  holiness  than 
the  enlisting  and  drilling  of  a  soldier.  We 
will  imagine  him  a  veteran  of  twenty  or  thirty 
years'  service.  We  ask  him :  "  Are  you 
drilled.!^"  He  evidently  feels  that  is  a  ques- 
tion not  to  be  answered  in  a  monosyllable. 
He  takes  off  his  foraging  cap,  strokes  his 
gray  moustache,  and  says  :  "  Well,  I  thought 
so  once.  I  wrote  to  my  mother,  a  couple  of 
months  after  I  enlisted,  that  I  had  got  all  the 
drill ;  but  I  don't  think  so  now.  There  are 
a  hundred  things  in  gunnery,  tactics,  fortifi- 
cations, military  engineering,  and  the  like, 
that  you  would  not  understand  if  I  should 
tell  you,  that  I  am  only  beginning  to  know 
something  about.  No ;  I  am  not  drilled,  but 
I  am  in  process  oi  being  drilled." 

?8 


JUSTIFICATION  AND  HOLINESS.        59 


'*  Well,  are  you  enlisted  ? " 

"  Oh,  yes.  I  am  enlisted  all  I  can  be.  That 
was  a  thing  that  was  begun  and  ended  on  the 
very  day  I  was  sworn  into  the  force." 

So  with  Christ's  soldier.  His  enlisting  is 
complete.  His  justification  is  a  finished 
grace.  He  "took  the  oath"  when  he  ac- 
cepted Christ ;  and  Christ  accepted  him  and 
justified  hira.  But,  "  Is  he  holy }  Is  he  sanc- 
tified } "  He  thought  so,  perhaps,  for  a  few 
weeks  after  his  conversion.  "There  was  a 
time,"  said  good  old  Bishop  Latimer,  "we 
thought  w^  could  drive  the  devil  out  of  Eng- 
land by  the  ringing  of  holy  bells  and  such 
like  foolery.  And  Satan  did  seem  to  think 
it  good  sport,  and  did  hide  himself.  But 
when  the  Word  came  to  be  plainly  taught 
and  plainly  read,  Satan  did  see  it  was  no 
child's  play,  and  came  out,  and  did  rage  and 
fight."  And  as  long  as  the  young  convert 
thinks  he  has  got  all,  and  there  is  nothing 
more  to  attain,  Satan  is  content  to  hide  him- 
self and  let  him  alone. 


6o 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


But  holiness  or  sanctilication  is  not  a  place, 
but  a  way.  A  way  or  road  is  to  travel  on, 
not  to  live  on.  Isaiah  says  (35  :  8)  :  "And  an 
highway  shall  be  there,  and  a  way,  and  it 
shall  be  called  The  way  of  holiness."  That 
is  the  road,  dear  Christian  pilgrim,  you  are 
to  travel  in  —  the  "way  of  holiness."  As 
far  as  "sanctified"  means  "separated,"  and 
it  often  has  largely  this  meaning  in  the  New 
Testament,  a  Christian  may  say,  "  Yes,  I 
am  sanctified."  But  as  we  generally  use  it, 
to  mean  holiness,  sinlessness,  perfection,  we 
say,  as  the  soldier  said  about  his  "drill": 
"  No ;  we  are  not  sanctified,  but  we  are  in 
process  of  being  sanctified." 


)lace, 
on, 
d  an 
d  it 
That 
are 
As 
and 
^J"ew 


BORN   FROM   ABOVE. 


SUCH  is  the  alternative  translation  of  the 
"born  again"  of  the  third  chapter  of 
John.  The  change  is  so  great  and  thorough 
that  only  a  new  birth  can  fitly  image  it.  From 
being  an  heir  of  hell,  to  be  made  a  child  of 
God. 

On  this  winter  morning  the  snow  is  lying 
thick  and  soft  around  and  over  the  landscape. 
It  fell  yesterday ;  it  is  very  pure  and  very 
white.  But  it  may  become  soiled.  Day  by 
day  impurities  will  gather  in  and  upon  the 
snow.  It  is  no  longer  beautiful  to  look  upon. 
It  becomes  filthy.  Can  it  ever  be  cleansed, 
made  white  and  pure  again }  Not  by  wash- 
ing it,  nor  by  sweeping  or  dusting.  It  can 
only  be  made  pure  again  by  being  melted, 
and  exhaled,  and  rising  as  invisible  mist  into 
the  upper  air,  and  gathered  into  clouds,  and 


6i 


■ 'I 

I'  in 


;  '.V  -1 


fl 


I, 
I  ■ 


62 


T//£  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


softly  sent    down  again  pure   once  more  — 
"born  from  above!" 

So  is  the  soul,  beneath  the  power  of  God, 
drawn  upward,  purified,  and  born  again,  or 
from  above. 


1 4, 
f 


re  — 

God, 
1,  or 


■'I 


THE  FAR-REACHING    NATURE    OF 

GOD'S   LAW. 


WHEN  I  was  a  child  I  knew  that  hatred 
was  a  sin,  and  I  wondered  why  there 
was  not  a  commandment  which  said  :  "  Thou 
shalt  not  hate."  And  I  knew  that  telling 
lies  was  sin,  and  I  thought  there  should  have 
been  a  commandment  against  lying.  I  did 
not  know  how  far-reaching  and  all-embracing 
are  the  commandments  we  have.  There  is  not 
a  sin  but  is  aimed  at  and  denounced  in  one  or 
other  of  the  ten.  God  looks  over  this  awful 
world  of  sin.  He  divides  sins,  just  as  we 
divide  languages,  into  certain  classes  or  sets. 
He  takes  ten  great  classes,  or  nations,  or 
languages,  or  tribes  of  sins,  and  denounces 
them  all. 

Now  each  of  these  tribes  or  nations  of  sins 
has  a  king,  a  chief.  So  the  Almighty  declares 
war  against   the   king  or  chief.     As  in  the 

63 


,'ii 


II  ii 


Vi 


f     I 


64 


T//£  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


Crimean  war  the  queen  of  Great  Britain 
declared  war  against  "  the  emperor  of  all  the 
Russias,"  yet  the  war  was  really  against  the 
whole  Russian  nation,  so  God  declares  war 
against  the  king  of  each  nation  of  sins  by  name  ; 
but  the  conflict  is  with  the  whole  tribe  or  na- 
tion of  which  he  is  head.  Take  hatred  for  an 
instance,  and  look  at  the  fifth  chapter  of 
Matthew  for  an  exposition  of  the  sixth  com- 
mandment. The  very  warning  that  the  rab- 
bis gave  about  murder  Jesus  transfers  to  him 
who  hates  his  fellow-man.  And  John  says : 
"  Whosoever  hateth  his  brother  is  a  murderer. " 
The  fact  is,  the  nation  is  hatred,  the  king  of 
that  nation  is  murder,  and  the  declaration  of 
war  is  leveled  against  the  king  by  name,  but 
includes,  as  every  declaration  of  war  does, 
the  whole  nation. 

And  so  with  my  other  early  difficulty  about 
lying.  The  most  flagrant  kind  of  lying  we 
could  imagine  is  to  swear  away  the  life  of  an 
innocent  man  and  testify  against  him  of 
crimes  he  never  committed.     But  the  nation 


NATURE   OF  GOD'S  LA  IV. 


65 


is  a  very  large  one ;  all  falsehood,  prevarica- 
tion, and  concealment  of  truth  are  found 
there ;  but  the  king  of  that  tribe  is  perjury, 
and  the  command  makes  special  mention  of 
him. 

Another  of  my  early  cogitations  was  on 
the  relation  of  the  first  and  second  com- 
mandments. I  thought  they  had  overlapped 
and  interlaced  each  other  and  were  indeed 
but  one  and  the  same  command,  but  divided 
into  two  for  convenience  of  remembering, 
or  for  some  other  reason.  But  it  is  not  so. 
The  sin  denounced  in  the  first  command- 
ment is  atheism  and  unbelief,  and  a  turn- 
ing away  from  God.  The  sin  forbidden  in 
the  second  is  the  idolatry  of  ritualism  and 
forms  taking  the  place  of  real  worship.  And 
it  would  be  difficult  or  impossible  to  explain 
to  a  child  who  every  day  sees  images  adored, 
in  what  way  that  very  thing  is  not  a  break- 
ing of  the  commandment  against  images. 
This  was  Aaron's  sin  in  the  desert.  He 
"  made  a  proclamation,  and  said,  To-morrow 


66 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


is  a  feast  to  the  Lord."  And  he  had  the 
golden  calf  all  ready  for  the  occasion.  It 
was  an  "  improved  "  way  of  worshiping  God. 
The  sacred  ox  or  calf  was  a  symbol  of  power, 
and  they  imagined  they  could  have  a  better 
idea  of  God's  power  by  having  this  figure 
before  them.  A  little  friendless  orphan 
boy,  sick  in  a  hospital  in  India  in  the  time 
of  the  dreadful  mutiny,  said,  when  spoken 
to  about  Jesus  Christ :  **  I  think  I  could  pray 
to  him  better  if  I  had  a  little  image  of  him 
to  look  at."  The  poor  little  fellow  had  been 
left  largely  to  the  care  of  heathen  servants, 
and  knew  little  of  the  true  God.  And  that 
is  the  very  feeling  to  which  a  corrupt  form 
of  Christianity  panders. 

But  we  as  a  people  and  as  Protestants 
are  by  no  means  free  of  blame  in  this  matter. 
We  break  the  first  commandment  when  we 
put  God  out  of  our  lives,  and  his  thought 
out  of  our  hearts,  and  live  only  for  money 
or  position  or  influence,  or  fame  or  selfish 
indulgence.     Wc  have  then  **  some  other  god 


NATURE   OF  GOD'S  LAV/. 


67 


:he 
It 


' 


before  him."  And  we  break  the  second  com- 
mandment when,  not  being  so  gross  as  to 
set  up  a  calf  in  the  desert,  or  burn  in- 
cense to  Nehushtan  (2  Kings  18  :  4),  all  the 
worship  we  give  to  God  is  to  put  on  our  best 
clothes  and  go  to  church,  or  drop  a  coin  into 
the  collection.  If  that  is  all  the  honor  and 
worship  we  give  to  God,  we  might  just  as 
well  put  those  clothes  on  a  pole  and  make 
an  idol  of  them,  or  bow  the  knee  before  the 
goddess  portrayed  on  the  coin. 

Depend  upon  it,  God  does  not  twice  fulmi- 
nate a  declaration  of  war  against  the  same 
hostile  king.  Once  is  enough.  The  king  of 
the  nation  of  sins  in  the  first  commandment 
is  atheism  —  denial  of  God.  The  king  in  the 
second  commandment  is  idolatry  ;  the  nation 
is  ritualism,  serving  God  in  vain  ways  of 
our  own,  instead  of  serving  him  in  spirit  and 
in  truth.  Now  the  worst  degree  of  putting 
God  out  of  our  lives  is  to  deny  his  existence 
altogether.  We  may  not  go  so  far  as  that ; 
we  may  be  merely  careless  of  spiritual  things, 


:M?    !! 


68 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


yet  we  break  God's  first  commandment.  We 
may  not  go  so  far  as  to  set  up  idols  and 
images  in  our  homes  and  in  our  churches  ; 
yet  if  all  our  worship  is  mere  outward  for- 
mality, the  religion  of  a  Pharisee,  we  break 
the  second  commandment. 

And  if  our  better  appreciation  of  the  far- 
reaching  nature  of  God's  law  drives  us  closer 
and  quicker  to  Jesus  Christ,  the  great  Law- 
keeper  and  our  great  Advocate,  then  bless 
God  for  his  Ten  Commandments,  and  for  the 
fact  that  they  are  so  comprehensive  that 
every  sin  it  is  possible  for  man  to  commit  is 
included  in  one  or?  other  of  the  ten  nations  or 
languages  into  which  God  divides  them. 


1( 

a 

<( 

s 
( 
1 
( 


mcl 
is; 
tor- 
jak 

ar- 
ser 
iw- 

;iSS 

;he 

lat 

is 

or 


THE    THREE-FOLD    ASPECT    OF 
GOD'S    COVENANT. 


WHEN  Christ  sets  us  free  from  condem- 
nation and  gives  us  the  rules  of  his 
household  for  our  guidance,  we  shall  find  they 
are  the  same  Ten  Commandments  we  used  to 
look  at  and  tremble.  If  we  believe  Christ,  we 
are  saved  already;  we  do  not  require  a  law 
"that  will  save  us; "  we  have  a  Saviour  that 
saves  us.  But  we  want  to  know  what  is 
Christ's  will,  that  we  may  do  it ;  and  he  says 
in  sweetest  accents,  **  If  ye  love  me,  keep  my 
commandments ; "  and  he  gives  us  the  ten 
"words"  that  were  spoken  at  Sinai,  but  he 
calls  them  now  by  a  different  name :  it  is 
"  Christ's  law  **  now,  our  rule  of  life. 

The  fact  is,  the  Decalogue  comes  to  us  in 
a  two-fold  character,  just  as  Christ  comes  to 
us.  Believe  Christ,  and  you  shall  live ;  he 
will  be  to  you  a.  savor  of  life  unto  life.     Re- 

69 


^o 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE, 


ject  Christ,  and  you  shall  die ;  he  will  be 
unto  you  a  savor  of  death  unto  death.  So 
with  the  commandments.  Take  them  as 
the  rule  of  your  Christian  life,  and  you  will 
find  that  Christ's- fulfilling  of  that  law  is  put 
to  your  account,  and  you  are  blessed  by 
them.  Take  them  as  a  covenant  of  works, 
and  you  are  at  once  condemned  by  them. 
"  So  the  law  was  our  pedagogue,  to  bring  us 
unto  Christ !  "  Just  as  the  confidential  slave, 
the  "pedagogue"  who  superintended  the 
education  of  the  children,  could  not  teach 
them  many  of  the  branches  himself,  but  was 
responsible  that  the  children  were  led  or 
carried  to  the  teacher  or  professor,  where 
they  could  get  the  proper  lessons,  so  the  law 
can  not  save  us  of  itself,  but  it  takes  us  to 
Christ,  who  can  save  us. 


\.-im. 


GOOD   SAYINGS   OF  BAD   MEN. 


THE  wise  man  will  not  refuse  wisdom, 
come  from  where  it  will.  In  the  case 
of  one  good  and  holy,  the  words  he  utters 
come  to  us  with  a  force  and  dignity  utterly 
wanting  in  the  case  of  a  suspicious  charac- 
ter ;  and  yet  the  latter  may  give  us  a  thought 
or  a  principle  that  will  do  us  good  all  our 
lives.  We  have  numerous  examples  of  this 
in  the  Scriptures.  Some  of  our  choice  say- 
ings may  be  traced  to  unworthy  men.  We 
do  not  often  repeat  the  false  philosophy  of 
Cain,  when  he  insolently  and  wickedly  asked, 
**  Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ? "  though  I  have 
heard  it  urged  in  all  seriousness  by  opponents 
of  the  temperance  movement.  But  we  do,  as 
poor  sinners,  often  feel  like  crying  out,  with 
that  unhappy  man,  "  My  punishment  is 
greater  than  I  can  bear  ! "  A  saying  of  Ba- 
laam's—  crooked,  disobedient,  and  unprinci- 


71 


72 


THE  PRINT   OF  HIS  SHOE. 


pled  as  he  was  —  lingers  in  our  memories  as 
a  strain  of  sweet  music:  "Let  me  die  the 
death  of  the  righteous,  and  let  my  last  end 
be  like  his ! "  Unhappy  man !  he  lived 
among  the  wicked,  and  his  death  was  like 
his  life. 

Perhaps  no  character  in  the  Scriptures  is 
more  despicable  than  Ahab.  Yet  we  adopt 
one  of  his  sayings  for  its  truth  and  for  its 
beauty.  The  king  of  Syria  had  sent  insolent 
and  oppressive  demands,  and  when  Ahab 
demurred,  the  Syrian  threatened  him  ;  and 
Ahab  sent  back  this  message  :  '*  Let  not  him 
that  girdeth  on  his  harness  boast  himself  as 
he  that  putteth  it  off." 

When  we  use  the  proverb,  "All  that  a 
man  hath  will  he  give  for  his  life,"  we  are 
quoting  Satan  himself.  Again,  we  have  in 
the  case  of  Nebuchadnezzar  the  utmost 
worldly  sagacity  with  the  most  brutal  tyranny 
and  selfishness.  Yet  we  repeat  the  question 
concerning  the  Most  High,  and  weave  it  into 
our  prayers :   "  None  can   stay  his  hand,  or 


GOOD  SAYINGS  OF  BAD  MEN. 


73 


as 
he 
Id 
d 
ce 

is 
ot 
ts 
It 

Lb 

d 
n 

IS 


say  unto  him,  What  doest  thou  ? "  Nor  can 
we  avoid  feeling  daily  the  importance  of  the 
question  asked  by  the  unprincipled  procurator 
of  Judaea,  when  the  Lord  Jesus  stood  before 
him:  "What  is  truth?" 

Thus  we  may  learn,  even  from  bad  men, 
and  may  profitably  employ  some  of  their  utter- 
ances; remembering  always  that  a  man's 
words  are  often  better  than  the  man  himself ; 
and  that  with  a  bad  man  there  may  be  some 
part  of  the  field  of  character  not  so  utterly 
given  over  to  weeds  and  briers  as  the  rest. 


DIVIDING   OUR   TIME. 


MANY  a  young  convert  is  troubled  over 
this  question  :  "  How  much  time  must 
I  give  to  religion,  and  how  much  may  I  use 
for  the  world  ? "  He  would,  with  his  present 
feelings,  give  all  his  waking  hours  to  God ; 
but  he  has  ducies  and  necessities  that  compel 
him  to  spend  many  hours  every  day  in  work 
or  business,  and  he  seems  to  himself  thus 
robbing  God. 

Now  the  question  he  asks  nobody  can  an- 
swer except  by  saying,  "  Give  God  all  your 
time."  And  it  seems  to  him,  when  his 
friends  tell  him  that,  that  they  are  mocking 
him ;  and  when  the  Scriptures  tell  him  the 
same,  that  it  is  a  riddle  he  can  not  solve. 

Let  us  have  a  Socratic  conversation  upon 
this  matter. 

**  Does  God  appoint  us  any  work  —  actual 
bodily  labor -- to  do .? " 

74 


DIVIDING  OUR   TIME. 


75 


"  Yes. 


>> 


"Then  is  there  any  sin  in  doing  what  God 
appoints  ? " 

"No." 

"Then  we  have  reached  the  conclusion 
that  all  labor  is  not  sin.  Is  God  always  pres- 
ent with  his  children  }  " 

"Yes." 

"  Then  if  you  are  a  child  of  God,  will  God 
be  always  present  with  you  ? " 

"Yes." 

"  In  your  hours  of  labor,  as  well  as  in  your 
hours  of  worship  } " 

"  It  must  be." 

"And  is  he  not  always  pleased  when  we 
do  what  he  commands  us  .^" 

"Yes." 

"Then,  when  we  are  enjoined  always  to 
have  the  Lord  with  us,  and  when  God  prom- 
ises to  be  always  with  us,  must  it  not  follow 
that  we  do  not  need  to  divide  our  time  between 
God  and  the  world,  but  have  God  with  us 
all  the  time }     If  we  can  make  him,  as  it 


76 


THE  PRINT   OF  HIS  SHOE, 


were,  the  senior  partner  in  our  business,  or 
the  overseer  of  our  labor,  shall  we  not  feel 
that  we  must  do  honest  business  and  do 
reliable  work  ?  Then  we  need  not  and  must 
not  toil  so  as  to  unfit  ourselves  for  converse 
v/ith  him  who  goes  with  us  to  our  daily  du- 
ties and  is  greatly  interested  in  our  worldly 
affairs." 

Thus,  if  we  set  rigb^^'-  about  it,  we  do  not 
need  to  divide  our  time  :  we  can  give  it  all  to 
God. 


HELPERS   IN   PRAYER. 


WHY  was  it,  when  Christians  many  a 
time  might  have  escaped  molestation 
and  persecution,  if  they  ha '  only  kept  at 
home  and  dropped  all  their  meetings  for 
awhile,  they  would  meet  together  for  prayer, 
and  thus  got  themselves  into  danger  ?  Just 
because  they  needed  and  wished  the  help 
thai  came  through  each  other's  prayers.  They 
could  pray  alone,  but  that  was  not  enough  ; 
they  must  pray  together,  and  thus  help 
one  another,  and  bear  each  other's  burdens. 
The  great  helper  is  the  Holy  Spirit.  But 
his  help  is  not  so  often  in  direct  suggestions 
to  the  mind  as  through  some  of  his  children. 
He  has  n:  ore  interests  than  mine  to  consider, 
and  his  sendin?^  riie  help  in  the  more  indirect 
way,  by  a  hum<  n  brother,  answers  a  double 
purpose  :  it  leaves  a  -blessing  with  the  brother 
who  gives  a  blessin'^  to  me. 


77 


78 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE, 


Our  f«)vmer  mercies  are  great  helpers  for 
us.  lh;jre  are  many  things  we  ought  to  for- 
ge:,—  sjns  and  rebellions  and  hard  thoughts 
of  Q'Q<K  — but  mercies  we  are  commanded  to 
r^meabcr.  And  we  can  use  them  as  pleas 
for  more  mercies. 

And  our  own  human  experiences  are  help- 
ers. Do  we  not  feel  far  more  disposed  to 
grant  a  petition,  are  we  not  drawn  out  in  a 
far  greater  tenderness,  when  there  is  a  long- 
ing, loving,  certain  expectation  of  receiving ; 
when  there  is  a  tender  confiding  in  us,  in 
our  love  and  liberality ;  an  expectation  that 
will  not  take  a  refusal,  and  which  we  can  not 
refuse  }  And  is  it  not  as  tiue  of  God  }  "  If 
ye  then,  being  evil,  knov/  how  to  give  good 
gifts  unto  your  children  '*  (and  we  know  what 
the  yearning  heart  of  a  child  is !)  "  how 
much  more  shall  your  Father  which  is  in 
heaven  give  good  things  to  them  that  ask 
him  } " 

Your  needs,  your  desires,  your  Christian 
friends,   God's   own   promises,   your    former 


HELPERS  IN  PR  A  YER. 


79 


mercies,  your  human  experiences,  are  all 
helpers  for  you.  In  all  these  ways  you  have 
also  the  help  of  the  Spirit. 


WORKING   FROM   WITHIN. 


GOD'S  plan  of  restoring  human  nature 
is  to  begin  within  and  have  the  reno- 
vating influences  work  outward.  Man's  plan 
is  to  begin  on  the  outside ;  but  alas  !  the 
process  stops  there.  To  purify  the  stream 
we  must  have  the  fountain  pure  ;  and  to  have 
our  nature  made  holy  we  must  have  the  prin- 
ciple of  holiness  within,  in  the  soul ;  for  it  is 
from  the  soul  that  actions  proceed.  Our  Lord 
showed  this  in  the  parable  addressed  to  the 
Pharisees  about  the  cup  and  the  platter.  The 
pollution  was  inward,  in  the  contents.  No 
mere  outward  cleansing  would  reach  that.  I 
knew  a  foolish  but  well-meaning  man  who 
thought  he  could  resuscitate  a  boy  who  had 
been  twenty-four  hours  drowned  by  warming 
and  rubbing  the  body.  And  he  got  the  poor 
rigid  limbs  supple  and  a  certain  feeling  of 
warmth   in   the   surface   of    the    body,    but 


80 


WORKING  FROM   WITHIN. 


8l 


there    was    no   life,   no    breath,   nor    could 
there  be. 

And  so  an  outward  reform  merely  will 
never  make  a  new  man.  The  heart  must  be 
given  up  to  God.  Christ's  Spirit  must  dwell 
within.  The  springs  of  human  action  must 
be  purified  before  the  nature  can  be  pure. 
Have  we  not  seen  middle-aged  men,  polite, 
polished  in  manner,  soft  in  speech,  and  careful 
not  to  offend,  and  yet  we  knew  them  to 
be  bankrupt  as  to  every  moral  principle.  So 
it  may  be  spiritually.  There  may  be  the  out- 
ward semblance  of  a  changed  nature,  and  yet 
the  nature  remain  unchanged.  And  do  not 
forget  that  if  you  shrink  from  having  the 
Holy  Ghost  rule  over  you  and  want  still 
to  keep  the  control  of  your  own  moral 
being,  you  can  not  become  a  child  of  God. 
Self  is  on  one  side  and  God  is  on  the  other. 
If  we  have  God  we  have  all  things ;  if  we 
have  self  we  have  only  self. 


SOWING  AND   REAPING. 


HOW  slow  the  world  is  to  believe  that 
mental  and  spiritual  sowing  just  as 
surely  brings  forth  a  crop  as  any  other  sowing. 
No  one  professes  to  doubt  that  wheat  will 
produce  more  wheat,  or  beans  a  crop  of  beans. 
Yet  men  take  in  and  believe  and  spread 
around  them  bad  principles  and  degrading 
habits,  and  do  not  seem  to  think  that  these 
will  grow. 

Not  one  of  us  has  the  right  to  do  any  thing 
without  expecting  the  appropriate  reward  or 
result  to  follow.  A  bad  boy  naturally  makes 
a  bad  man,  and  an  evil  habit  or  bent  of  mind 
will  degrade  th  2  whole  soul.  A  man  thinks 
and  resolves  that  he  will  never  get  into  the 
penitentiary ;  yet  he  goes  on  robbing  and 
stealing,  and  he  is  sent  there  for  fifteen  years, 
and  dies  in  prison.  He  failed  to  see  that 
crime  always  leads  to  its  punishment. 

83 


<» 


b' 
hi 
si 
c 
I 
h 


SOWING  AND  REAPING. 


83 


" 


But  there  is  a  deliverance.  Not  tliat  Satan 
becomes  willing  to  let  you  go  ,  not  that  sin 
has  ceased  to  be  most  abominable  in  the 
sight  of  God;  but  this  —that  Christ  has 
come  "  to  destroy  the  works  of  the  devil." 
And  where  does  he  find  them.^  In  your 
heart,  poor  sinner !  This  insensibility  to  the 
evil  of  sin ;  this  putting  off  all  serious 
thought;  this  want  of  all  desire  to  be  rid 
of  sin ;  this  despising  of  God's  mercy,  — 
Christ  comes  to  make  destruction  of  these. 
You  may  keep  him  out ;  you  have  done  so 
already ;  but  if  you  admit  him  —  and  you 
have,  in  words  at  least,  often  prayed  him  to 
come  —  he  destroys  all  these.  If  a  man  is 
not  willing  to  have  the  evil  rooted  out  of  his 
nature,  he  can  not  be  saved. 


t 


^^U^Oj. 


IMAGE  EVALUATION 
TEST  TARGET  (MT-3) 


1.0 


i.i 


11.25 


-I2£  Hi 
2.2 


1.4 


1^ 


FhotogFaphic 

Sciences 

Corporalion 


23  WIST  MAIN  STMHT 

WltSTiR,N.Y.  145M 

(71«)  •72-4503 


JESUS  ON  THE  CROSS. 


THE  heart-broken  words,  "  My  God,  my 
God !  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ? " 
adopted  by  Jesus  from  the  Twenty-second 
Psalm,  I  have  often  thought  especially  reveals 
to  us  something  of  the  penalty  of  sin,  which 
he  bore  for  us  —  in  our  stead.  Most  Scotch 
boys,  of  whom  I  was  one,  learn  from  the 
Shorter  Catechism  this :  "'All  men,  by  their 
fall,  lost  communion  with  God."  By  sin  we 
have  "lost  communion  with  God."  We  are 
now,  in  our  fallen  and  natural  state,  like 
the  branches  of  the  apple-trees  I  see  cast 
over  the  road-fence  by  a  farmer  out  of  his 
orchard,  when  he  pruned  it  in  the  spring.  I 
have  seen  them  with  buds  and  small  leaves, 
sometimes  with  opening  blossoms ;  but  they 
are  cut  off  from  the  tree,  and  must  die. 

Now  was  not  this  exactly  the  penalty  pro- 
nounced  upon   Adam  ?     He  did  not  die  in 

84 


t 
t 


yESUS  ON    THE   CROSS. 


85 


it 


the  literal  sense  on  the  day  he  ate  the  fruit ; 
he  lived  for  nine  hundred  years.  Nor  are  we 
to  think  he  died  the  eternal  death ;  for  we  be- 
lieve  he  died  in  faith.  But  the  penalty  came 
on  the  day  he  sinned,  for  God  would  keep 
his  word.  Then  how }  Why,  in  this  cutting 
off  from  God.  And  he  could  only  live  again 
by  being  newly  grafted  in.  Our  Lord's  para- 
ble about  the  vine  and  the  branches,  or  Paul's 
about  the  olive-tree,  will  explain  it. 

It  was  this  very  penalty  —  this  cutting-off 
from  God,  as  a  branch  from  a  tree  —  that  was 
pronounced  in  Ezekiel :  "  The  soul  that  sin- 
neth,  it  shall  die  ! "  For  the  penalty  of  sin, 
the  wages  of  sin,  is  in  all  ages  the  same. 
And  I  apprehend  that  it  was  this  very  penalty 
that  our  Lord  bore  upon  the  tree.  He,  in 
taking  our  place,  paid  our  penalty,  whatever 
that  might  be.  And  here  we  find  him,  in  this 
horror  of  darkness,  cut  off  from  God. 

Yea,  once  Immanuel's  orphaned  cry 

The  universe  hath  shaken; 
It  went  up  single,  echoless: 

*'  My  God!  I  am  forsaken!" 


86 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE, 


And  the  following  circumstance  brought 
very  vividly  to  my  mind  the  peculiar  form  and 
language  of  our  Lord's  cry  on  the  cross.  A 
ministerial  brother  once  told  me  of  his  eldest 
son,  who  had  died  somewhere  in  the  United 
States.  His  employer  had  written  the  father 
i  letter,  detailing  the  circumstances  of  his 
son's  sickness  and  death,  and  among  other 
things  said :  "  During  the  last  twenty-four 
hours  of  his  life  he  wandered  much  in  his 
mind,  and  spoke  to  himself  all  the  time  in 
some  language  we  could  not  understand." 
"Oh,"  I  said  to  my  old  friend,  knowing  he 
was  from  the  Highlands,  "that  would  be 
Gaelic."  "Yes,  I  suppose  so,"  replied  he, 
"but  he  never  heard  Gaelic  in  his  father's 
house.  My  wife  and  I  when  we  were  married 
—  we  could  speak  both  languages  —  agreed 
that  we  would  keep  house  in  English  and 
use  that  language  in  our  home ;  and  our  chil- 
dren never  heard  us  speak  any  thing  but  Eng- 
lish. No  doubt  he  heard  the  Gaelic  on  the 
school  play-ground  and  among  his  little  play- 


yESUS   ON  THE   CROSS. 


87 


„ 


T 


mates  from  his  earlier  infancy ;  but  it  could 
hardly  be  called  his  native  language."  Yet 
here  it  was;  the  poor  fellow,  dying  among 
strangers,  wandered  back  in  the  mists  of 
death  to  the  heather  and  the  Highland  hills  ; 
and  he  was  once  more  in  imagination  a  little 
barefooted  Highland  boy,  with  tartan  trews, 
and  the  honest  Gaelic  tongue.  And  is  it  too 
far-fetched  to  believe  the  same  of  Ch  ist }  that 
he  too  wandered  back  to  the  vernacular  he 
had  learned  and  lisped  in  his  highland  home 
— for  Nazareth  was  up  among  the  hills,  twelve 
hundred  feet  high  —  and  now  the  language 
of  his  childhood  was  the  language  of  his 
dying  thoughts.  No  doubt  he  had  taught 
much  in  Greek,  —  for  Greek  was  the  language 
of  public  life,  just  as  the  English  is  now 
among  the  Gaelic  Highlands,  —  but  the  sanc- 
tities of  life  and  death,  and  mother  and  in- 
fancy and  home,  all  expressed  themselves  to 
his  mind  in  the  home-like  Aramaic. 

Let  us  comfort  ourselves  with  the  thought 
that  whatever  our  penalty  for  sin  was,  Jesus 


88 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


bore  it  for  us ;  and  with  the  further  thought 
that  his  enemies  can  no  more  reach  him  now. 
For  he,  "after  he  had  offered  one  sacrifice 
for  sins  for  ever,  sat  down  on  the  right  hand 
of  God." 


CHRIST   AS  A  YOKE-FELLOW. 


■A 


BOYS  have  their  thoughts,  and  perhaps 
if  they  were  to  speak  often er  about 
them  they  would  get  mistakes  corrected  much 
sooner.  In  thinking  about  the  words  of  Jesus, 
"  Take  my  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of  me," 
I  used  to  imagine  the  Master  sitting  and 
deciding  for  each  one  of  us  what  kind  and 
weight  of  a  yoke  we  should  bear ;  and  that 
yoke,  whatever  it  was,  should  be  on  our  necks 
till  death.  But  we  are  sure  to  learn,  if  we 
are  anxious  to-  learn ;  and  I  now  look  upon 
it  in  a  much  more  cheerful  light.  Christ 
appeals  to  us  to  become  yoke-fellows  with 
him.  He  invites  us  to  come  and  share  his 
experiences.  Paul  had  his  yoke-fellows,  and 
he  sends  kind  remembrances  to  them.  Our 
Master  does  not  put  a  yoke  upon  us,  and 
stand  off  at  a  distance  to  see  us  toil  beneath 
it.     He  rather  asks  us  to  come  under  the 

89 


90 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


yoke  with  him,  and  well  assured  are  we  that 
in  such  a  case  the  heavy  part  of  the  service 
is  done  by  him  who  now  invites  us. 

What  a  blessed  mark  was  put  upon  the 
poor  Cyrenian !  not  the  Simon  who  denied 
his  Master  ;  not  the  Simon  who  condescended 
to  invite  Jesus  to  dine  with  him ;  not  the 
Simon  who  practiced  sorcery  in  Samaria ; 
but  the  Simon  who  bore  Christ's  cross. 
And  Luke,  with  his  usual  care  and  exact- 
ness, tells  us  that  he  bore  it  "  after  Jesus." 
Of  course  it  may  mean  that  Jesus  walked 
before,  guarded  by  the  soldiers,  and  Simon 
came  behind,  bearing  the  cross  ;  but  we  are 
pleased  to  think  that  very  likely  it  means 
that  Jesus,  unable  to  bear  the  whole  weight 
any  longer,  continued  to  bear  the  forward, 
and  presumably  the  heavier,  end,  and  Simon 
bore  the  other  end  after  him.  Two  things 
would  immediately  occur  to  Simon's  mind, 
and  have  occurred  to  many  a  Christian's 
mind  since:  i.  He  would  necessarily  be 
obliged  to  keep  step  with  Jesus ;    and  2. 


.: 


CHRIST  AS  A    YOKE-FEU.OW. 


91 


'• 


He  could  bear  more  of  the  load  by  getting 
up  closer  to  Christ.  No  doubt  he  did  them 
both,  and  we  thank  him  for  it ! 

Blessed  companionship !  divine  yoke-fel- 
low !  How  easy  is  thy  yoke  when  thou  dost 
bear  it  with  us !  And  even  the  cross  itself 
has  sung  itself  out  of  the  disgrace  men 
sought  to  put  upon  it,  and  has  become  a 
badge  of  discipleship ! 

**  Light  is  the  load  when  his  grace  goes  with  it. 
Leader  and  Lover  and  Friend ! 
Sweet  is  the  rest  with  his  love  beneath  it, 
Solace  that  never  shall  end! 

Come  to  the  Refuge,  and  you  shall  have  rest; 
Come  to  the  Blessed,  and  you  shall  be  blest; 
Now  and  forever  a  friend  and  a  guest ; 
Come  to  the  Saviour,  come!" 


\v 


JESUS   IN   THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. 


THINGS  go  in  cycles,  and  the  fashion 
and  form  of  spiritual  thought  is  no 
exception.  Some  years  ago  there  was  a  dis- 
position to  neglect  too  much  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. "  It  gives  us  God's  dealings  with  his 
ancient  people,  and  it  prophesies  concerning 
Christ."  This,  and  nothing  more.  But  of 
later  years  many  people  begin  to  see  that 
there  is  much  more  than  this.  If  Christ 
was  king  and  leader  of  his  Church  in  ancient 
times  as  well  as  in  what  we  call  the  Chris- 
tian ages,  —  and  his  own  Spirit  indited  the 
word  then  even  as  he  applies  it  now,  —  then 
why  would  it  not  be  perfectly  easy  for  him  so 
to  construct  the  word,  and  so  to  order  the 
ceremonies  and  guide  the  history,  that  every 
thing  should  image  spiritual  experience  and 
teach  us  concerning  himself } 

I  have  heard  Thomas  Binney  preach,  one 


,. 


I, 


93 


yESUS  IN  THE  OLD   TESTAMENT.      93 


i. 


of  the  great  men  of  modern  English  Noncon- 
formity ;  and  one  of  Binney's  root-princi- 
ples he  was  always  teaching  young  men  was 
that  "all  Old  Testament  facts  were  doc- 
trines." There  is  a  depth  in  that  thought  it 
would  well  repay  us  to  elaborate  and  work 
out.  A  friend  of  mine  gave  the  other 
evening  a  most  instructive  and  elaborate 
parable  rendering  of  the  marriage  of  Isaac 
and  Rebecca.  The  whole  story  is  full  of  the 
most  apt  and  beautiful  images  of  Christ  and 
the  believer,  the  bridegroom  and  the  bride. 
And  so  it  may  be  in  every  part  of  the  old 
and  inspired  record. 

Mr.  Moody,  in  speaking  of  Rahab  and 
Jericho,  said  there  was  a  **  scarlet  line  "  run- 
ning all  through  the  Old  Testament,  testify- 
ing of  Jesus  and  his  blood.  And  if  we  could 
imagine  Christ  taken  out  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, what  would  be  left  1  Something  of 
history,  something  of  philosophy,  a  little 
poetry,  a  little  theology,  but  nothing  to  give 
a  man  a  hope  beyond  the  grave.  It  would 
be  a  temple  without  a  shrine. 


94 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


"  Take  out  my  heart  when  I  am  dead  and 
gone,"  said  an  English  statesman,  dying, 
"and  you  will  find  the  name  of  England 
there."  So,  penetrate  to  the  heart  of  the 
Old  Testament  and  you  will  find  it  bright 
with  the  name  of  Jesus.  He  dies  in  its  sac- 
rifices ;  he  testifies  through  its  prophets  ;  he 
intercedes  in  its  high  priests ;  he  receives  us 
in  its  cities  of  refuge  ;  he  bears  our  sins  in 
its  scape-goat ;  he  feeds  us  in  its  paschal 
lamb ;  he  leads  us  in  its  pillar  of  cloud  and 
of  fire.  Jesus  is  in  the  sprinkled  blood;  in 
the  sin  offering ;  in  the  incense  ;  in  the  Holy 
of  holies ;  in  the  holy  breastplate  of  the 
priest ;  in  the  mercy-seat ;  in  the  ark  of  the 
covenant;  in  the  temple.  Thank  God  for 
the  Old  Testament' 


,. 


'■ 


i. 


PROVIDENCE 


- 


THERE  is  a  misty  idea  in  many  men's 
minds,  as  if  "  Providence  "  were  separate 
from  the  Father,  the  Son,  or  the  Holy  Ghost ; 
a  fourth  Person,  or  a  separate  department  in 
the  Godhead.  Xhe  Scriptures  do  not  teach 
us  so.  Paul  and  Silas  were  going  into  Bi- 
thynia,  "but  the  Spirit  suffered  them  not." 
It  is  not  said  "  they  were  hindered  by  God's 
Providence  ;"  though  probably  that  would  be 
the  way  of  expressing  it  in  our  day.  It  was 
the  same  Spirit  that  enlightened,  renewed, 
and  sanctified  them,  that  managed  their  out- 
ward affairs  for  them,  opened  the  way  for 
them  to  go  in  one  direction,  and  barred  the 
way  in  another. 

It  has  been  observed  that  "  the  Bible  con- 
tains or  exhibits  no  department  of  God's 
dealings  with  men  which  has  not  either  con- 
version or  sanctification  for  its  object."     And 

95 


96 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


when  the  Holy  Spirit  reproves  ("  convicts  '*) 
the  world  of  sin,  of  righteousness,  and  of 
judgment  (John  i6:  8),  it  is  not  for  the  mere 
sake  of  the  sorrow,  but  for  that  to  which  the 
sorrow  leads,  submission  and  conversion. 
We  call  it  "the  work  of  the  Spirit,"  when  it 
concerns  the  feelings  in  the  heart ;  but  if 
those  feelings  are  brought  about,  as  in  most 
cases  they  are,  through  occurrences  in  our 
lives  or  surroundings,  then  we  call  it  "  Provi- 
dence."    In  reality,  it  is  the  same. 

Has  it  ever  occurred  to  you,  dear  young 
reader,  that  since  sin  has  come  into  the 
world,  it  is  a  good  thing  that  sorrow  came 
with  it }  Think  of  the  sin  without  the  sorrow 
that  it  brings.  If  the  medicinal  products  of 
nature,  poisonous  when  used  in  sufficiency 
for  food,  were  all  agreeable  to  the  taste,  how 
deaths  from  poisoning  would  multiply !  So, 
if  sin  had  no  sting  and  left  no  sorrow,  how 
many  more  souls  would  be  destroyed  by  it ! 
Now  the  Spirit  is  one ;  and  all  his  manifesta- 
tions are  for  the   end   of    benefiting    man. 


PROVIDENCE, 


97 


And  the  inward  uneasiness  and  sorrow,  and 
the  outward  circumstances  that  bring  the 
sorrow,  are  all  parts  of  the  administration  of 
the  unseen  God,  who  cares  for  us  and  loves 
us  and  desires  to  save  us. 

And  is  it  not  an  inspiring  thought  to  the 
child  of  God,  that  the  same  Spirit  who  has 
been  whispering  to  him  of  truth  and  duty,  of 
Christ  and  heaven,  also  directs  his  outward 
life?  Even  as  we  learn  to  know  that  what 
men  call  nature  is  the  art  of  God,  so  also  we 
learn  at  last  to  know  that  what  we  have  been 
in  the  habit  of  calling  Providence,  often  not 
knowing  exactly  what  we  meant  by  it,  is  the 
Holy  Spirit  managing  and  governing  our 
affairs  and  us. 


THE  SECRET   MARRIAGE. 


■' 


A  WOMAN  who  has  suffered  herself  to 
be  inveigled  into  a  secret  marriage, 
and  who  still,  falsely  and  wrongly,  calls 
herself  by  her  own  former  name,  and  will 
not  bear  the  name  of  her  husband,  puts  her- 
self altogether  in  a  false  and  indefensible 
position.  Just  so  with  the  believer  who  will 
not  take  the  name  of  Christ ;  for  "  I  speak 
concerning  Christ  and  the  church."  Such  a 
believer  has  to  hear  his  Lord  evil  spoken  of, 
yet  he  is  afraid  to  take  his  part.  Others 
acknowledge  him  as  their  Lord  and  Master, 
yet  he  stands  aloof  and  will  not  put  himself 
with  them  as  one  of  them. 

And  just  as  the  woman  who  has  placed 
herself  in  that  most  false  of  all  positions  — 
that  of  denying  and  keeping  secret  a  mar- 
riage—  must  listen,  if  her  false  position  is  to 
be  maintained,  to  other  offers  of  marriage,  so 

98 


i^ 


THE  SECRET  MARRIAGE. 


99 


the  soul  that  fails  to  avow  openly  its  union 
with  Christ  is  always  liable  to  the  solicita- 
tions of  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil. 
"  You  don't  belong  to  the  church.  You  don't 
need  to  be  so  particular  about  the  Sabbath," 
says  one.  "You  may  drink  with  a  friend,'' 
says  another ;  **  you  're  not  a  professor." 
"You  are  not  bound  to  educate  your  chil- 
dren religiously ;  you  are  free ;  you  can  let 
them  have  a  little  liberty."  "  You  may  turn 
your  back  on  the  church  when  it  becomes 
unpopular  in  an  ungodly  neighborhood."  So 
the  influence  goes. 

And  such  a  believer  is  generally  "be- 
wrayed by  his  speech."  He  never  says 
"  we,"  in  talking  of  the  Church  of  Christ  or 
of  saints.  It  is  always  "they."  No  more 
certainly  did  the  Ephraimites  lisp  at  the 
word  "  shibboleth,"  than  he  stutters  at  the 
word  wei 

Now  Christ  knew  the  danger  and  the 
wrong  of  such  a  course.  And  he  knew  the 
remedy.     He  says  most  solemnly  to  you,  to 


ICX) 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


me,  to  all :  "  Whosoever  therefore  shall  con- 
fess me  before  men,  him  will  I  confess  also 
before  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven.  But 
whosoever  shall  deny  me  before  men,  him 
will  I  also  deny  before  my  Father  which 
is  in  heaven." 


■  \ 


n- 
so 
ut 
m 
:h 


ONE  RULE. 


CHRISTIANS  are  sometimes  at  a  stand 
to  know  how  they  are  to  regulate  their 
lives ;  how  they  are  to  increase  in  grace,  and 
what  are  to  be  the  principles  of  success  and 
the  tests  of  progress.  Paul  had  no  doubt 
often  met  this  difficulty  in  his  apostolic  work, 
and  he  tells  the  Colossians  what  the  rule 
and  the  test  is :  "  As  ye  have  therefore 
received  Christ  Jesus  the  Lord,  so  walk  ye 
in  him."  The  rule  is  simply  this:  to  hold 
fast  the  doctrines  that  converted  us.  We 
are  not  to  enter  upon  our  Christian  pilgrimage 
with  one  set  of  Christian  hopes  and  principles, 
and  then  to  walk  all  our  lives  by  some  other 
set  of  principles.  We  are  not  to  get  pardon 
and  salvation  by  just  believing  what  God 
says  about  his  Son  (i  John  5  :  9-1 1),  and 
then  depend  for  assurance  and  joy  upon 
something    we    see    wrought   in    ourselves. 


ZOI 


I02 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE, 


Poor  child  of  earth  !  You  began  to  live  by 
walking  with  Christ ;  continue  to  walk  with 
him.  You  were  saved  by  grace  alone ;  you 
must  walk  every  day  by  the  very  same 
grace.  When  you  first  believed,  it  was 
Christ  only  ;  let  it  be  Christ  only  now.  You 
set  out,  in  the  day  of  your  espousals,  to  do 
Christ's  will ;  continue  to  do  his  will  and 
you  will  have  your  joy  continued.  I  appeal 
to  your  memory  of  the  days  when  you  first 
believed  in  Christ.  If  you  had  the  same 
zeal  now,  do  you  not  think  you  would  have 
the  same  enjoyment }  If  there  were  in  you 
the  same  giving  up  of  your  own  way  and 
taking  Christ's  way,  would  there  not  be  the 
same  results  now  as  then }  If  you  had  the 
same  desire  for  Christ's  glory,  now  that  you 
have  been  in  the  church  for  some  time,  as 
you  had  when  you  were  just  coming  in, 
would  you  not  feel  the  same  fervor }  The 
fact  is,  —  and  this  is  the  line  of  Paul's 
argument  with  the  Colossians,  —  we  are  to 
remember  on  what  ground  we  are  saved,  and 


,. 


ONE  RULE. 


103 


to  continue  on  it.  It  was  all  grace  at  the 
first,  and  it  must  be  all  grace  throughout 
our  life  and  to  the  end. 


WHAT  DID   HE   DO? 


I  WAS  on  one  occasion  preaching  about 
the  Prodigal  Son.  It  was  in  a  little  log- 
house,  where  the  beams  of  the  "up-chamber" 
were  rather  too  low  to  be  comfortable  for  the 
tall  men  of  the  little  company,  and  where  the 
little  table  in  front  of  me  did  not  stand  very 
firmly  on  the  uneven  floor,  and  the  benches 
were  not  steady.  Yet  the  people  were  very 
quiet  and  attentive.  It  had  been  a  neglected 
neighborhood,  and  they  seemed  glad  to  hear 
the  gospel  from  any  body.  In  the  middle  of 
the  sermon  I  stopped  and  said :  "  Now  I 
want  to  ask  you  a  question :  When  he  had 
come  to  his  father,  and  the  father  kissed 
him  and  forgave  him,  and  commanded  the 
best  robe  to  be  put  on  him,  what  did  the 
prodigal  do .? "  And  looking  at  a  good  man 
sitting  right  before  me,  I  said :  "  Mr.  Wallis, 
what  did  he  do  ? "     He  hitched  round  on  his 


1 


|0| 


WHAT  DID  HE  DO/ 


105 


f 


seat  and  twisted  up  his  mouth,  as  if  he  wanted 
to  find  an  answer,  but  could  not  think  of 
any  thing.  "Why,"  I  asked,  "he  didn't 
do  any  thing,  did  he?"  "No!"  "That 
is  it,"  I  continued;  "he  just  gave  himself 
up  to  the  servants,  that  they  might  do  what 
they  liked  with  him,  according  to  the  com- 
mands of  his  father.  His  doing  was  in  the 
coming  home ;  now  it  was  the  father's  doing, 
and  the  dging  of  his  servants,  to  receive 
him  as  a  son  and  to  robe  him  for  the  feast. 
So  with  the  sinner.  He  must  come  to  God 
and  give  himself  up  to  God's  will ;  and  God's 
Spirit  will  clothe  him  with  the  garment  of 
Christ's  righteousness,  and  present  him  as  a 
son.  But  he  must  give  himself  up  to  the 
Spirit,  as  the  prodigal  gave  himself  up  to  his 
father's  servants.  He  will  have  the  robe, 
the  shoes,  the  ring,  but  he  does  not  himself 
put  them  on.  It  is  God  that  saves  us,  but 
we  must  give  ourselves  up  to  God  to  be 
saved." 


NOT  ALL  SIN  SEEN  AT  ONCE. 


IN  the  trespass  offering  a  man  might  bring 
a  lamb  from  his  flock,  or  two  turtle- 
doves, or  young  pigeons,  or  the  tenth  part 
of  an  ephah  of  fine  flour.  Why  this  grada- 
tion }  I  think  we  may  assume  that  no  man 
was  so  poor  as  to  be  unable  to  bring  the  two 
young  pigeons,  on  account  of  the  cost  or  the 
value  of  them  ;  and  that  the  gradation  in  the 
offering  pointed  not  only  to  the  greater  or 
less  wealth  of  the  offerer,  but  also  to  his 
greater  or  less  apprehension  of  his  guilt. 
David  would  not  give  to  the  Lord  "that 
which  cost  him  nothing;"  and  a  pious 
Israelite,  feeling  deeply  his  trespass  before 
God,  would  express  it  by  more  than  the  hand- 
ful or  two  of  finie  flour. 

The  same  gradation  is  found  among  our- 
selves. Some  have  more  of  the  feeling  of 
sin  than  others.     But  let  every  man  who 

zo6 


1 


NOT  ALL  SIN  SEEN  AT  ONCE. 


107 


1 


feels  sia  at  all  come  to  God  with  the  sins  he 
does  feel,  and  confess  them.  I  am  convinced 
that  if  we  felt  our  sins  at  the  moment  of 
our  coming  to  God  with  as  great  fullness  of 
apprehension  as  we  gradually  and  in  the  aggre- 
gate feel  them  through  our  Christian  course, 
we  should  die  at  once.  The  duty  of  coming 
to  God  without  waiting  first  for  some 
"deeper"  insight  into  sin  is  not  only  duty, 
but  safety. 

If  I  had  so  far  forgotten  God  as  to  put 
forth  my  hand  to  my  neighbor's  goods,  and 
had  become  full  with  the  gains  of  robbery, 
and  then,  struck  with  remorse  and  wrought 
upon  by  God's  Spirit,  had  desired  to  do  what 
was  right  and  make  restitution,  what  should 
I  do  if  much  of  the  stolen  property  had  been 
spent  or  wasted?  Should  I  postpone  resti- 
tution till,  by  the  toil  and  labor  and  savings 
of  years,  I  could  return  every  one  in  full,  with 
good  interest,  and  by  the  splendor  of  my 
restitution  seem  to  palliate  something  of  the 
guilt  of  my  sin  ?     No  ;  my  duty  would  be  to 


io8 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


go  to  each  man  I  had  wronged,  tell  him  of 
my  sin  and  my  sorrow,  bring  back  the  part 
of  his  property  I  had  in  possession,  and  tell 
him  I  should  never  cease  my  efforts  till  I  had 
paid  him  all.  So  let  us  not  wait  to  feel  sin 
deeper,  but  go  with  the  sins  we  do  feel. 
There  may  be  sin  in  some  man's  splendid 
confession  of  sin. 


, 


GIVING  GOD   REASONS. 


J' 


IF  we  have  any  good  reasons  why  God 
should  answer  our  prayers,  let  us  spread 
out  these  reasons  before  the  Lord.  If  there 
are  no  reasons  why  we  should  be  blessed,  let 
us  not  urge  the  unreasonable  petition.  God 
is  continually  giving  us  reasons,  and  he  de- 
sires that  we  should  use  them.  Thus  did  the 
holy  men  of  old.  Abraham  pleaded  for  Sod- 
om by  urging  that  its  destruction  would  be 
slaying  the  righteous  with  the  wicked.  And 
he  thought  that  surely  there  must  be  some 
righteous  men  there.  And  if  Abraham  had 
lived  there  instead  of  Lot,  I  can  not  but 
think  there  would  have  been  some  converts. 
When  God  threatened  to  destroy  Israel,  Mo- 
ses pleaded  God's  own  reputation  —  that  the 
heathen  would  say :  "The  Lord  was  not 
able  to  bring  them  into  the  land."  Daniel 
prayed  for  Israel  and  for  Jerusalem  because 


109 


no 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


they  were  called  by  God's  name.  The  Script- 
ure is  full  of  this  principle.  We  always 
find  reasons  for  asking  favors  from  men.  It 
is  expected  that  we  should  have  some  good 
reason  to  give. 

We  want  salvation.  Why.?  Christ  has 
died  to  obtain  it  for  us.  It  glorifies  Christ. 
It  is  according  to  God's  desire.  He  has 
promised  to  forgive  us.  We  want  to  escape 
wrath.  We  want  to  be  holy.  We  want  to 
reach  heaven.  We  want  to  be  rid  of  the 
dominion  of  sin.  We  want  to  be  like  Christ. 
We  want  to  lead  others.  All  good  reasons. 
Spread  them  out  before  God.  Depend  upon 
it,  religion  is  the  most  reasonable  thing  in 
the  world.     It  is  founded  on  good  reasons. 


. 


THE   END   OF   SIN. 


, 


„ 


IT  is  said  of  the  ichneumon-fly  that  it 
pierces  the  body  of  a  caterpillar  in  its 
more  fleshy  parts,  and  deposits  there  an  egg, 
which  soon  becomes  a  grub.  The  caterpillar 
lives  and  feeds,  and  when  autumn  comeis 
rolls  himself  up  in  his  cocoon  in  preparation 
for  the  Qpming  sumriier,  when  he  is  to  be  a 
butterfly.  But  to  the  caterpillar  thus  stung 
no  summer  comes.  Other  caterpillars  push 
their  way  out  of  their  cocoons  and  spread 
their  painted  wings  in  the  air,  but  not  he.  He 
has  nourished  a  grub ;  that  lives,  but  he  is 
dead. 

So  with  sin.  We  can  not  tell  by  the  looks 
of  a  man  whether  he  is  sold  to  sin.  The 
homely  caterpillar  had  his  future  butterfly- 
wings  all  nicely  folded  within  him ;  but  he 
was  stung  with  the  fly,  and  they  are  all  eaten 
away.     The  angel  wings   God    gives   us    in 


III 


112 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


germ  we  should  keep  as  our  lives  ;  but  if  the 
principle  of  sin  is  nourished  within  us,  we  may 
look  like  God's  children,  we  may  walk  about 
and  transact  business,  and  live  and  die,  and 
none  suspect  that  our  soul  is  destroyed ;  but 
when  we  would  rise  to  heaven,  we  shall  find 
that  our  angel  wings  are  gone,  and  for  us  no 
glad  future  life  remains.  Dear  young  friend, 
do  you  carry  within  you  the  principle  of  sin  ? 
Do  you  know  its  end  ?  Are  you  sure  your 
wings  are  safe  ? 


CONVICTION  THROUGH  EVIDENCE. 


IF  I  had  offended  one  of  my  fellow 
creatures,  and  were  in  great  trouble  about 
getting  forgiveness,  where  would  feeling 
come  in.  My  feelings  would  make  no  differ- 
ence as  to  the  fact  of  forgiveness  existing  or 
not  existing.  What  I  should  want,  with  re- 
spect to  that  wished-for  fact,  would  be  evi- 
dence. So  between  me  and  God,  I  do  not  need 
to  feel  forgiveness,  but  to  know  that  God  feels 
forgivingly  toward  me.  I  once  heard  Henry 
Varley  use  this  illustration  :  "  If  I  were  a 
poor  orphan,  homeless  child,  and  I  got  my 
eyes  upon  a  man  whom  I  knew  to  be  rich 
and  kind,  and  wished  very  much  that  he 
would  take  me  for  his  own  child,  my  feelings, 
however  deep  they  might  be,  would  not  se- 
cure the  blessing  nor  bring  me  happiness. 
But  if  I  found  out  what  his  feelings  were, 
and  came  to  know  that  he  had  observed  me, 

1x3 


114 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


and  inquired  about  me,  and  loved  me,  and 
wished  to  adopt  me  and  take  me  home,  I 
should  be  perfectly  happy  !  '* 

It  is  of  much  more  importance  to  know 
God's  feelings  than  to  dwell  upon  our  own. 
Another  of  Mr.  Varley's  anecdotes  was  this. 
He  met  an  old  Yorkshire  friend  he  had  not 
seen  for  thirty  years. 

*"Well,  my  old  friend,"  he  said,  as  he 
shook  him  by  both  hands,  "  how  do  you  do  } 
And  do  you  love  Jesus  ? " 

"  Ah,  I  can  tell  you  something  better  than 
that !  better  than  that,  Mr.  Varley !  " 

"  What  is  that  ?  " 

**  Jesus  loves  nje ! "  said  the  old  man,  sol- 
emnly ;  "  Jesus  loves  me  !  " 

Now  the  evidence  of  all  this  is  in  the  Bible. 
It  is  there  we  have  to  look  to  find  out  what 
are  God's  feelings  toward  ourselves,  and  what 
God  in  Christ  has  done  for  us.  It  is  giving 
evidence  on  the  one  side,  and  believing  the 
evidence  on  the  other.  **  And  this  is  the^  rec- 
ord "  (the  evidence),  **  that  God  hath  given  to 
us  eternal  life,  and  this  life  is  in  his  Son." 


md 
J,  I 

low 
[wn. 
[his. 
not 


ONLY   ONE  AMONG  THE   REST. 


IT  is  hard  for  us  to  bring  ourselves  down 
to  the  level  of  our  race  and  be  content 
to  be  saved  along  with  the  rest,  without  any 
thing  special  or  peculiar  in  our  individual 
case.  Naaman  wanted  —  so  it  proved  — 
something  more  than  a  cure ;  he  wanted  a 
little  glory  as  well.  He  could  have  a  cure  by 
going  down  into  the  deep  valley  of  the  Jordan 
and  dipping  in  its  waters  ;  but  he  was  angry 
that  the  prophet  did  not  come  and,  with  great 
deference  and  respect  to  him,  pray  Jehovah 
to  cure  him,  laying  his  hand  on  the  leprosy. 
That  would  have  been  pleasing  ;  the  other  was 
not.  But  when  he  became  humble  enough  to 
receive  the  blessing  in  any  way,  in  God's  way, 
the  trouble  was  all  over.  I  knew  a  man  who 
thought  he  could  to  a  certainty  get  a  new  heart, 
if  he  went  alone  to  a  distant  barn  of  his  and 
prayed    long  enough.     There    was   nothing 


"5 


ii6 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


i 


wrong  in  going  to  the  barn  nor  in  praying 
for  a  new  heart.  The  mistake  was  in  not  be- 
lieving God  was  willing  to  save  him  in  any 
other  way  or  any  other  place.  And  God 
did  not  heal  him  in  the  barn,  no  more  than 
he  did  Naaman  at  the  prophet's  door.  But 
they  were  both  blessed  as  soon  as  they  were 
humble  enough  to  take  the  blessing  in  any 
way  God  should  send  it. 

There  have  been  men  who  seemed  to  think 
it  was  better  to  be  noted  for  wickedness  than 
not  to  be  noted  at  all.  A  conceited  young 
man  in  ancient  times  began  to  despair  of 
fame  for  doing  any  thing  good  or  noble,  and 
so  he  thought  that  to  do  something  very 
wicked  would  bring  him  some  kind  of  fame, 
and  no  trouble  to  obtain  it.  He  therefore 
fired  the  Temple  of  Diana  at  Ephesus.  The 
people  and  the  young  man  himself  thought 
it  was  horrible  and  unsurpassable  wicked- 
ness. 

And  there  are  people  now  who  think  God 
can  not  save  them,  they  are  so  wicked.   They 


ONLY  ONE  AMONG    THE  REST. 


117 


be- 


set up  for  an  eminence  in  wickedness.  They 
are  a  little  ashamed  of  trying  to  be  very 
wicked  outwardly,  for  so  many  people  are 
looking  on.  But  they  are  wicked  in  their 
hearts,  and  they  are  sure  they  have  got  to 
such  an  eminence  in  wickedness  that  God 
will  have  to  make  some  special  arrangements 
for  saving  them.  The  Light  that  hath  ap- 
peared to  all  men  is  not  enough  to  illumine 
their  darkness.  The  Saviour  who  saves 
others  will  fail  in  their  case.  God  must 
stand  amazed  at  the  failure  of  his  plan  of 
salvation  to  reach  them. 

But  who  art  thou,  O  sinner,  whosoever 
thou  art,  that  God  should  refuse  or  be  unable 
to  pardon  thee?  Thou  art  but  one  among 
the  rest.  Listen !  God  has  done  a  greater 
thing  for  thee  already  when  he  laid  thy  sins 
on  Jesus  !  Thou  wert  not  asking  him  then ; 
it  was  all  of  his  own  love.  He  knew  thou 
wouldest  need  Jesus,  and  laid  a  foundation 
for  thy  salvation  long  ago.  And  since  God 
has  laid  thine  iniquities  on  Jesu^  (Is.  53  :  6) 


ii8 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


% 


before  thou  didst  ask  him,  dost  thou  think  he 
will  turn  away  from  thy  petition  and  thy 
prayer  now  ?  Nay,  trust  him  as  others  have 
trusted  him,  and  be  blest  as  they  are  blest. 
Thou  art  but  one  among  the  rest,  and  thou 
shalt  have  no  other  blessing  than  they.  But 
then  thou  art  one  among  the  rest,  and  the 
common  blessing  has  in  it  a  share  for  thee. 


re 
It. 

iu 

It 


THE     SINNER    A     COVENANT- 
BREAKER. 


WHERE  the  word  Testament  occurs  in 
our  English  Bibles,  it  might  equally 
well  be  rendered  covenant,  and  is  so  ren- 
dered in  nearly  every  place  in  the  Revision. 
So  our  names  for  the  two  parts  of  the  Script- 
ures might  fitly  be  "The  Old  Covenant," 
"The  New  Covenant." 

In  Exodus  (34 :  28)  we  read :  "  The  cove- 
nant, the  ten  commandments."  The  word 
"commandments"  is  in  the  margin  "words." 
The  "ten  words  ; "  that  is,  the  ten  articles  of 
the  covenant.  In  this  aspect  the  sinner  is 
not  only  a  commandment-breaker,  but  a  cove- 
nant-breaker. The  Decalogue  itself  takes  a 
new  aspect  when  we  consider  it  as  a  cove- 
nant. God  not  only  commands,  but  he  en- 
gages.   Let  us  glance  over  the  commandments. 


XX9 


I 


1 20 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


U 


and  see  what  is  inferred  in  each  ;  as  is  further 
elaborated  in  many  other  parts  of  Scripture  : 

I.  I  am  your  God. 

II.  I  will  come  near  to  you. 

III.  When  thou  callest  upon  me  I  will 
deliver  thee. 

IV.  "My  presence  shall  go  with  thee, 
and  I  will  give  thee  rest.  " 

V.  "The  first  [or  chief]  commandment 
with  promise." 

VI.  He  will  protect  thy  life. 

VII.  "I  will  protect  the  sanctity  of  thy 
home,  even  as  I  forbid  thee  to  desolate  the 
sanctity  of  another's  home." 

VIII.  Thou  shalt  not  need  to  steal. 

IX.  Truth  shall  be  kept  for  thee. 

X.  "  I  have  commanded  others  that  they 
shall  not  covet  what  is  thine." 

We  have  received  all  the  blessings  ;  and  if 
there  is  any  thing  we  have  not  received,  it  is 
because  we  have  neglected  to  take  it  and  use 
it.  And  shall  we  not  fulfill  our  side  of  the 
covenant  ?    We  look  upon  a  covenant-breaker 


mmmm 


\ 


A   COVENANT-BREAKER. 


121 


with  horror  and  disgust,  as  among  the  lowest 
and  most  despicable  of  men.  That  is  pre- 
cisely our  condition  as  unrepenting  sinners. 
We  have  broken  the  covenant  with  God. 


VALUE  OF  FIRST  IMPRESSIONS. 


THE  statement  of  Zacchaeus  the  publi- 
can, "  the  half  of  my  goods  I  give  to 
the  poor,"  etc.,  was  not  a  self-righteous  boast 
concerning  his  former  practice,  but  the  vow 
of  a  new  convert,  who  perhaps  thought  that 
a  certain  business  talent  for  increasing  wealth 
was  the  only  talent  he  possessed,  and  he 
would  dedicate  that  henceforth  to  God.  And 
this  resolution  would  he  greatly  strengthened 
by  its  being  spoken. 

Few  men  involved  in  the  meshes  of  drunk- 
enness, and  who  have,  "  on  principle,"  refused 
the  temperance  pledge,  have  ever  been  cured 
of  inebriety.  And  very  few  indeed  who  have 
resolved  to  come  to  God,  but  to  keep  it  a 
secret  and  make  no  profession  of  religion, 
have  ever  found  Christ.  John  Brown  of 
Harper's  Ferry  used  to  say  that  in  matters 
of  conscience  and  duty  he  always  followed 


133 


VALUE   OF  FIRST  IMPRESSIONS. 


123 


4. 


his  first  impressions ;  that  they  were  purest 
and  best ;  the  "  sober  second  thought "  was 
apt  to  be  a  selfish  or  indolent  thought. 
A  lady  in  Glasgow  sent  me  word,  at  the 
close  of  a  meeting,  that  if  I  would  go  home 
with  her  she  would  give  me  a  pound  for  the 
mission  for  which  I  had  been  pleading,  as 
she  had  no  money  with  her.  And  on  the 
way  she  told  me  that  when  it  came  into  her 
mind  to  do  any  thing  for  God,  she  could  not 
trust  herself  if  she  put  off  the  doing  of  it ; 
she  wanted  to  commit  herself  at  once,  for 
fear  she  would  change  her  mind.  "  Whatso- 
ever thy  hand  findeth  to  do,  do  it  with  thy 
might." 


THE  PURPOSE   OF  PROPHECY. 


I  USED  to  be  troubled  to  know  how  I 
should  ever  understand  some  of  Eze- 
kiel,  for  instance.  Was  it  to  be  taken  liter- 
ally ?  Who  was  the  prince  ?  And  what 
about  the  city?  And  the  waters  flowing 
eastward  ?  And  if  it  could  not  be  satisfac- 
torily understood,  why  was  it  given?  But 
I  have  learned  to  be  more  modest  in  my  de- 
mands, and  to  be  content  that  future  genera- 
tions should  have  something  new  to  discover, 
instead  of  getting  all  their  wisdom  at  second- 
hand from  us. 

Our  Lord  furnishes  us  the  key  of  all  proph- 
ecy when  he  says  :  "  I  have  told  you  before  it 
come  to  pass,  that,  when  it  is  come  to  pass,  ye 
might  believe."  It  is  given  us  to  strengthen 
faith  when  we  see  God's  fulfillment  of  it.  If 
it  were  given  merely  to  inform  us  before  the 
time,  it  would  be  given  us  with  perfect  plain- 

124 


asm 


■Hi 


THE  PURPOSE   OF  PROPHECY. 


125 


ness.  And  then,  it  is  much  to  be  feared, 
we  should,  when  we  saw  the  time  approach- 
ing, sit  down  and  do  nothing  but  wait  for  its 
coming.  A  tribe  of  Ojibway  Indians  with 
whom  I  am  acquainted  know  within  a  few 
days  when  the  agent  from  the  seat  of  gov- 
ernment is  coming  to  bring  them  their  half- 
yearly  allowances,  and  they  can  do  no  work  for 
a  fortnight — just  lie  on  the  river-bank  and 
watch  for  his  canoe  coming. 

Take  for  an  example  of  prophecy,  this : 
"  He  made  his  grave  with  the  wicked,  and 
with  the  rich  in  his  death,'*  and  fancy  any 
doctor  of  the  law,  how  evangelical  soever, 
trying  before  the  occurrence  itself  to  explain 
the  allusion.  How  impossible  to  make  any 
thing  of  it!  But  the  two  thieves  and 
Joseph  of  Arimathea  make  it  all  clear.  And 
how  consoling  and  strengthening  to  the  first 
believers  must- it  have  been!  How  calcu- 
lated to  take  away  the  horror  they  must  have 
felt  at  Christ's  dying  in  such  unworthy  com- 
pany, and  how  strengthening  to   their  faith 


126 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE, 


to  see  that  it  was  all.  predicted,  even  to  the 
fact  of  his  being  buried  in  a  rich  man's  tomb ; 
a  circumstance  unimportant  in  itself,  but 
important  as  being  a  unique  and  conspicu- 
ous mark  of  God's  foreknowledge  and  divine 
control. 

When  we  approach  prophecy,  let  us  come, 
therefore,  with  the  key  our  Lord  has  given 
us.  When  we  use  God's  key  we  shall  un- 
lock God's  treasures. 


the 
nb; 
but 
cu- 
ine 

ne, 

un- 


IT   IS   FINISHED. 


THE  finishing  of  any  great  work  is  always 
a  most  interesting  and  important  thing. 
We  should  like  to  have  been  present  at  Saint 
Paul's,  when  all  the  scaffoldings  were  down 
and  the  grand  space  swept  out,  and  hear  the 
architect  say  :  "The  work  is  finished  ;"  or  if 
it  is  a  life-long  work  of  history,  how  interest- 
ing a  moment  when  the  historian  lays  down 
the  pen  at  the  closing  sentences  and  says : 
"  It  is  done."  It  was  a  memorable  moment 
when  the  Venerable  Bede,  propped  up  in  bed, 
dictated  with  fast  shortening  breath  the  last 
words  of  his  Anglo-Saxon  translation  of  the 
Gospel  of  John.  "  There  remains  but  a  sen- 
tence," said  the  transcriber.  "  Haste  thee ! " 
said  the  dying  man.  And  the  work  was 
done. 

Or  if  it  is  a  statue  or  a  picture,  how  the 
artist  lingers  over  the  last  touches,  till  he 


137 


128 


THE  PRINT  OF'  HIS-  SHOE. 


lays  down  the  chisel  or  the  brush  and  says : 
"I  can  do  no  more."  Or,  a  long  and  holy 
life :  how  the  calm  of  a  heavenly  eve  steals 
over  its  close.  "  Lord,  now  lettest  thou  thy 
servant  depart  in  peace,  according  to  thy 
word  :  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  thy  salvation." 
But  what  can  equal  the  closing,  the  finish- 
ing of  the  sacrificial  v/ork  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ }  It  was  a  work  which  had  been  pre- 
paring from  the  foundation  of  the  world.  A 
work  so  extensive  that  the  salvation  of  the 
race  depended  on  it.  A  work  so  important 
that  only  the  Son  of  God  could  accomplish 
it.  And  it  was  finished  on  Calvary!  We 
can  not  add  to  it.  It  has  never  been  laid 
aside  for  something  else  to  take  its  place.  It 
gives  us  a  perfect  plea  before  God :  "  Lord, 
my  Saviour  has  finished  the  work  of  atone- 
ment for  me;  save  me  for  his  sake  alone!" 
Jesus  knew  the  use  we  should  make  of  his 
last  cry  on  the  cross ;  and  he  wished  us  to 
make  that  use  of  it.  The  atonement  is  fin- 
ished. No  man  can  add  to  it.  "  Whosoever 
will "  may  come  and  be  saved. 


BHBTjfl 


RELIGION   FOR   USE. 


it 


THAT  is  a  poor  religion  that  is  best 
enjoyed  alone.  It  may  be  compared 
to  the  taking  of  food.  None  of  us  could 
half  so  much  enjoy  a  well-spread  table  if  we 
were  all  by  ourselves  and  alone.  The  pleas- 
ant company  gives  a  relish  to  the  food.  And 
although  to  be  alone  with  God  is  the  way  to 
get  spiritual  strength,  yet  the  strength  thus 
obtained  is  to  be  used  in  the  battle  of  life. 
If  it  is  right  for  me  to  leave  the  duties  of 
life,  to  live  in  retired  contemplation,  then  it 
is  right  for  another ;  and  if  all  Christians 
should  retire  to  monasteries  and  hermitages, 
what  would  become  of  religion  in  the  world } 
The  fact  is,  the  heart  that  is  pure  must  show 
its  purity  among  hearts  that  are  not  pure, 
that  the  contrast  may  influence  them  for 
their  good. 

Religion  is  for  use  rather  than  for  show. 

129 


I30 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


If  a  woodman  would  know  whether  an  axe  is 
good,  he  does  not  test  it  by  looking  at  it  only^ 
but  he  goes  down  into  the  woods  and  tries  it 
in  the  timber.  Or  a  ^armer,  desiring  to 
know  the  qualities  of  a  new  scythe,  puts  it 
into  the  grass.  So  if  we  would  test  our 
religion,  we  must  take  it  down  with  us  into 
the  conflict  and  labor  of  life.  If  it  wear 
well  there,  it  will  wear  well  every-where. 

And  this  very  religion  we  have  tested  below 
we  take  with  us  to  the  eternal  mansions. 
We  know  that  that  man  is  richer  for  this 
life  who  seeks  and  keeps  that  purity  of  heart 
and  oneness  of  soul  with  Christ  that  marks 
him  as  his  disciple;  and  does  it  not  follow 
that  he  is  richer  to  enter  into  heaven  }  It  is  a 
great  thing  that  a  man  on  earth  may  learn 
to  do  the  work  of  God,  and  thus  make  this 
life  a  preparatory  school  for  heaven. 


SOME  ONE  THING. 


PAUL  says:  "  This  one  thing  I  do."  And 
there  is  always  some  one  thing  a 
person  can  do.  The  way  we  have  chosen  for 
ourselves  may  be  hedged  up,  and  we  may 
not  be  able  to  do  as  we  would;  but  some 
other  opening  will  appear.  And  I  do  not 
know  a  better  or  a  more  Christian  way  than 
first- to  seek  God's  aid  by  prayer,  and  then  sit 
down  and  ask :  "  Now  is  there  no  way  I  can 
turn  in  this  juncture  ?  Is  there  no  person  to 
whom  I  can  apply  ?  Is  there  no  other  way 
than  the  way  I  have  thought  of  for  accom- 
plishing this,  or  for  accomplishing  something 
else  that  will  do  just  as  well  ?  "  Does  poverty 
stare  you  in  the  face  ?  There  is  some  one 
honest  thing  you  can  do  to  make  a  living. 
Throw  away  pride  and  prejudice,  and  do  it. 

Are  you  a  minister,  a  discouraged  minister  ? 
There  is  some  one  person  in  your  flock  who 


132 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


ill' 
li.. 


is  full  of  faith  and  praying  and  working 
with  you  for  a  revival  of  the  Lord's  work. 
Are  you  a  young  man  away  from  home  and 
trying  to  push  your  way  in  the  world  ? 
There  is  always  some  one  thing  you  can  do. 
Don't  let  foolish  pride  keep  you  from  doing  it. 
When  all  other  resources  seem  to  fail  with 
the  Christian,  he  knows  that  one  thing  never 
fails  him  :  he  can  always  go  to  God  in  prayer. 
That  door  is  always  open  to  him. 

Ever  since  I  got  this  thought  —  and  it 
came  to  me  like  an  inspiration,  and  long  ago 
—  I  can  see  more  and  more  its  value :  that 
a  person  is  never  so  hedged  up  but  there  is 
some  one  thing  he  can  do  ;  some  one  way  he 
can  turn ;  some  one  person  he  can  influence. 
He  is  never  without  any  resource. 

Now  here  comes  in  the  wisdom  of  God. 
If  we  never  got  into  difficulties  we  should 
have  little  or  no  necessity  for  the  skill  we  are 
obliged  to  use  to  get  out  of  them.  If  all  our 
plans  seemed  to  go  right  we  should  gather 
conceit  and  pride  and  self-righteousness.    God 


SOME   ONE    THING. 


133 


humbles  us  and  teaches  us  by  letting  our 
plans  fail,  and  then  we  turn  to  him  for 
wisdom  and  strength.  The  philosopher  who 
could  not  get  a  college  to  give  him  a  salary 
nor  a  publisher  to  issue  his  works,  instead 
of  dying  of  a  broken  heart,  asked  himself: 
"  What  can  I  do  ?  "  and  began  teaching  some 
little  boys  in  a  Sunday-school.  His  boys 
became  divines  and  philosophers  and  teach- 
ers of  others,  and  together  did  a  hundred 
times  as  much  good  as  he  could  have 
done,  if  every  thing  had  gone  straight  with 
him.  There  is  always  some  one  thing  we 
can  do. 


] 


NOT    ONLY     OBJECTING,     BUT 
PROPOSING. 


ANT  body  can  pull  down.  It  needs  nei- 
ther skill  nor  heart  to  do  that.  Any 
•  body  can  object  and  deny.  The  Turk  has 
been  an  intractable  off-side  yoke-fellow  in  the 
team  of  humanity  all  along.  He  destroys 
but  never  constructs..  He  denies  but  never 
affirms ;  he  objects  but  never  proposes.  We 
would  not  wish  to  be,  morally,  only  Turks. 
Such  a  one  can  never  be  in  the  van  of  human 
progress.  He  must  wait  till  some  one  has 
done  something,  constructed  something,  at- 
tempted something,  before  there  is  any 
scope  for  his  peculiar  taleni.  Then  he  pulls 
down,  not  to  construct  better,  but  to  leave 
a  ruin  —  a  wilderness.  Such  is  not  the  part 
of  one  who  loves  God,  or  who  loves  man. 
To  break  down  a  man's  cherished  principles 
or  opinions  only  irritates  him,  if  that  is  all 


1 


»34 


OBJECTING  AND  PROPOSING.         1 35 


you  do.  And  he  has  a  moral  right  to  demand 
of  you  that  you  give  him  something  better 
to  take  the  place  of  what  you  have  demol- 
ished. 

There  is  always  something  of  soreness  in 
our  minds  when  a  faulty  principle  we  held,  or 
a  prejudice  we  cherished,  has  been  over- 
thrown and  removed.  Wc  don't  take  kindly 
to  this  process  ;  and  the  less  so  if  there  seems 
to  be  in  the  other  party  a  disposition  to  push 
the  victory  and  humiliate  us.  And  when 
"convinced  against  our  will,"  —  which  is  to 
us  a  very  disagreeable  process,  —  we  are  very 
stubborn  about  yielding.  When,  therefore, 
we  are  in  the  other  position,  that  of  convin- 
cing some  one  of  an  error  or  breaking  down 
some  wrong  principle,  let  us  remember  all 
this,  and  lay  our  whole  case  before  the  other 
person  without  expecting  an  immediate  con- 
sent. Expose  the  fallacy,  propose  the  rem- 
edy, pull  down  the  wrong,  build  up  the  right, 
but  don't  expect  your  friend  will  move  right 
into  your  nevr  building  and  pay  you  rent  for 


3 


\ 


136 


THE   PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE, 


it  from  that  moment.  Let  him  have  time  to 
think  it  over ;  let  it  simmer  in  his  mind ;  let 
your  request  for  his  credence  and  consent  be 
rather  a  proposal  than  a  demand ;  and  next 
time  you  meet,  your  friend  will  say :  '*  Well, 
when  I  come  to  think  that  matter  over,  I  be- 
lieve you  were  about  right."  And  you  have 
retained  your  friend  and  gained,  it  may  be, 
an  adherent  to  a  very  important  truth. 

I  have  tried  to  make  it  a  life-long  princi- 
ple never  to  object  to  any  thing  without 
showing  a  better  way.  It  has  often  checked 
me  in  objecting  to  things ,  and  I  have  seen 
afterwards  that  I  should  have  been  wrong  to 
object.  Every  thing  has  a  reason  for  its  exist- 
ence ;  and  we  do  very  wrong  in  objecting  to 
any  thing  before  we  have  found  the  real  or 
assumed  reason  for  it.  If  the  reason  is  vis- 
ionary or  false,  then  we  are  ready,  provided 
we  have  something  better  to  bring  forward, 
to  pull  down  and  construct  better. 

And  this  principle  of  not  pulling  down 
only,   but   pulling   down   in    order  to   build 


I 


OBJECTING  AND  PROPOSING.         1 37 

better,  is  followed  in  the  Scripture.  Prophe- 
cies end  in  promise.  Denunciations  of  sin 
are  followed  by  advice  and  entreaty.  And 
we  ourselves  shall  gain  greatly  by  remem- 
bering and  practising  the  rule  of  "never 
objecting  to  any  thing  without  proposing 
something  better." 


I 


' 
1 


± 


E  :■!' 


TRIBULATION. 


IN  the  pictures  of  an  ancient  mode  of 
threshing  grain,  one  man  is  seen  stirring 
up  the  sheaves  and  another  is  riding  on  a 
rude  dray,  with  three  or  four  rollers  instead 
of  wheels,  drawn  by  a  pair  of  oxen.  This  an- 
cient threshing  instrument  was  called  by  the 
Romans  tribulum.  The  rollers  had  sharp 
stones,  or  rough  bits  of  iron,  imbedded  in 
their  surface,  to  make  them  cut  up  the  straw 
and  facilitate  the  separation  of  the  grain. 
From  hence  we  get  our  word  tribulation. 
Just  as  the  sheaves  might  be  imagined  to 
complain  of  the  sharp  rollers  going  over 
them  and  cutting  into  them,  so  a  man  in 
great  affliction  would  speak  of  himself  as 
a  sheaf  torn  to  pieces  under  the  tribulum. 
But  as  no  thresher  ever  yoked  his  tribulum 
for  the  mere  purpose  of  tearing  up  his 
sheaves,  but,  on  the  contrary,  for  the  sole 

138 


)f 
s 

a 
d 
i- 
e 

■ 

V 


TRIBULATION. 


139 


purpose  of  bringing  the  precious  grain  into  a 
shape  to  be  useful  to  him  as  food,  so  our 
loving  Father  never  puts  us  under  the  tribu- 
lum  for  the  mere  purpose  of  bringing  upon  us 
tribulation,  but  always  for  a  divine  purpose 
of  good.  **  Behold,  the  devil  shall  cast  some 
of  you  into  prison,  that  ye  may  be  tried  ;  and 
ye  shall  have  tribulation  ten  days  :  be  thou 
faithful  unto  death,  and  I  will  give  thee  a 
crown  of  life." 


3 


.hi 


IN   THE  TREASURY. 


THE  Lord  sat  in  the  treasury  and  saw 
what  the  worshipers  gave ;  and  his 
estimate  was  sometimes  different  from  theirs. 
He  sits  in  the  treasury  still,  and  "weighs  the 
gold  against  the  giver's  thought,"  as  of  old. 

The  people  came  to  the  temple  not  only 
to  offer  sacrifices  and  pray  and  receive  instruc- 
tion, but  also  to  give  money  for  the  service 
of  God ;  and  Jesus  looked  on.  The  rich  men 
dropped  in  their  gold  coins  or  their  handfuls 
of  silver,  with  a  flourish  and  a  jingle.  But  a 
poor  widow  put  in  two  mites  ;  it  was  all 
she  had,  and  she  gave  it  all.  And  the  Lord 
Jesus  was  better  pleased  with  her  offering 
than  with  all  the  gold  of  the  rich  men. 

A  very  few  years  ago,  in  Montreal,  a  poor 
young  man,  far  gone  in  consumption,  lay  in 
the  hospital.  He  had  no  friends.  Some- 
body put  a  few  words  in  The  Witness,  asking 


J40 


W  THE    TREASURY. 


Ht 


assistance  for  him.  Two  days  passed,  and 
only  a  dollar  or  two  came  in.  But  a  poor 
Scotch  woman,  living  alone  and  supporting 
herself  by  her  own  work,  saw  the  notice  and 
went  to  lb'  hospital  to  see  him.  She  had  no 
money  to  '  -:  him;  but  what  he. needed  was 
not  so  much  money  as  care  and  love  and 
tender  nursing ;  and  she  took  the  young 
man  home  to  her  poor  hired  room  and 
nursed  him  tenderly  till  he  died. 

The  treasury  is  open  still,  and  the  widows 
and  the  poor  still  cast  in  "all  that  they 
have." 


"THE   LORD  IS  MY  SHEPHERD. 


)» 


THE  whole  Psalm  is  a  spiritual  song 
about  sheep  and  their  shepherd.  David 
no  doubt  had  in  his  mind  his  own  early  expe- 
riences. Perhaps  he  wrote  it  and  first  sung 
i  it  when  a  shepherd.  East  of  Bethlehem  and 
beyond  the  corn-fields  of  his  ancestor  Boaz, 
-the  country  grows  rough  and  barren,  with 
tremendous  gullies  a  thousand  feet  deep,  and 
sometimes  only  a  few  yards  wide.  Now  here 
is  David  with  his  few  sheep  in  the  wilderness  ; 
and  he  has  made  up  his  mind  that  there  is 
better  grass  on  the  other  side  of  one  of  those 
profound  ravines  or  gullies,  and  he  will  take 
his  sheep  across.  There  are  sure  to  be  wild 
beasts  in  such  places.  And  I  think  I  see 
him  casting  down  great  stones,  and  making 
all  the  noise  he  can  to  frighten  lions  and 
other  wild  beasts  away,  and  then  carefully 
guiding  his  flock  down  some  dangerous  zig- 


142 


"  THE  LORD  IS  MY  SHEPHERD:' 


143 


d 


zag  path,  carrying  some  weak  lamb  in  his 
arms,  and  getting  quickly  across  the  miry 
bottom  through  the  gloom  of  the  place,  and 
clambering  up  the  other  side,  glad  to  have 
got  safely  through. 

And  then  he  thinks  that  is  the  way  God 
takes  care  of  him.  In  the  terrible  risk  of 
being  devoured  by  spiritual  enemies ;  in  the 
death-like  shade  and  gloom  of  doubt  and  fail- 
ing faith  ;  in  death  itself,  his  Shepherd  will 
protect  him  and  bring  him  safely  through  to 
pastures  green  and  fair  on  the  other  side. 
Thank  God  for  such  a  hope  and  confidence ! 


1' 

if 

11' 

I' 


DAILY  BREAD. 


SOMETIMES  children  think  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  "Give  us  this  day  our  daily 
bread,"  asks  only  for  wheat -bread ;  and  one 
friend  told  me  of  his  little  boy  who  used  to 
add  :  "  And  butter,  please  !  "  But  as  they 
grow  older  they  begin  to  think  it  means  more 
than  wheat -bread,  and  more  than  mere  food. 
The  translation  of  the  Church  of  Rome  ex- 
presses it  exactly  :  "  Give  us  day  by  day  our 
supersubstantial  bread."  Only  we  can  hardly 
call  it  English.  But  **  supersubstantial," 
something  higher  and  beyond  the  mere  loaf 
we  hold  between  our  hands,  the  material  or 
substantial  bread  for  our  mouths,  is  really 
the  thought  here  present.  Our  Lord  else- 
where says :  "  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread 
alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out 
of  the  mouth  of  God."     And  so,  praying  the 

144 


Daily  bread. 


H5 


word's 
daily 
i  one 
ed  to 
they 
more 
food, 
i  ex- 
r  our 
irdly 
ial," 
Joaf 
1  or 
ally 
ilse- 
ead 
out 
Ithe 


Lord's  Prayer,  we  ask  for  mercy,  love,  pro- 
tection, goodness  —  all  we  need  for  this  day. 
And  many  people  think  they  can  see  this 
further  in    it  too:    "Give  us"  implies  more 
than  one  praying,  and    "this   day"  implies 
meeting  together  daily  to  pray ;  and  where 
could  the  coming  together  to  pray  and  the 
praying  thus  every  day  be  so  perfectly  seen 
as  in  family  prayer }     But  no  one  prays  this 
prayer,  if  he  is  able  to  work,  and  then  sits 
down   in   idleness,    waiting    for   the  loaf  of 
bread  or  the  joint  of  meat  to  come.     God 
gives  us  bread,  but  he  does  not  give  it  to  us 
ready-baked  out  of  the  oven.     He  gives  us 
strength  to  work,  and  soundness  of  mind  to 
do  business,  and  rain  and  sunshine  to  make 
the  grain  grow.     And  we  take  the  money  we 
earn  and  buy  the  bread  the  farmer  and  miller 
and  baker  have   produced.     But   it   is   God 
who  gives  it  to  us  all  the  same.     So  God  gives 
us  faith.      I  have  heard  men  dispute  whether 
God  gives   us  faith.     I   say  to   them :  God 
gives  us  faith  just  as  he  gives  us  bread.     He 


146 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


gives  you  all  the  materials  for  bread,  life  and 
health  and  strength  and  skill  and  money, 
or,  failing  these,  kind  friends,  and  you  put 
them  together  and  you  have  bread.  So  he 
gives  you  Jesus  and  his  atonement ;  he  urges 
you  by  his  Word  and  his  Spirit  to  let  your 
mind  receive  and  believe  what  is  true  and 
reject  what  is  false :  he  gives  you  all  the 
materials  for  this  "  supersubstantial "  bread. 
When  you  receive  them  they  are  faith,  and 
you  thank  God,  who  is  the  great  Giver  of 
it  all/ 


AMONG  THE   STANDING    GRAIN. 


IN  the  East  it  is  common  for  a  num- 
ber of  farmers  to  have  their  grain 
all  growing  in  one  large  field  together. 
Every  man  knows  his  own  land  and  does 
not  interfere  with  his  neighbor.  But  the 
public  must  have  roads,  whether,  as  here, 
between  the  fences,  or,  as  often  with  them, 
mere  paths  among  the  grain.  With  us,  a 
path  through  a  field  would  be  plowed  up 
every  time  and  again  trodden  hard  by  pass- 
ing feet.  But  in  Palestine  the  plows  are,  to 
our  eyes,  very  miserable,  and  they  often  let 
the  plow  out  at  the  paths ;  indeed,  they 
can  scarcely  keep  their  plows  in  at  all.  And 
so  the  paths  follow,  from  year  to  year,  the 
same  lines. 

Now  along  one  of  these  paths  we  see 
Christ  and  his  disciples  walking.  The  wheat 
(for  it  is  likely  it  was  wheat)  was  nearly  ripe 


148 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


u 


and  the  heads  heavy.  And  if  there  were 
storms  of  wind  upon  the  lake,  there  would 
also  be,  at  times,  storms  of  wind  upon  the 
land,  and  the  wheat  would  straggle  down 
over  the  path.  And  so  the  disciples,  Mark 
tells  us,  "  Began,  as  they  went,  to  pluck  the 
ears  of  corn."  But  see  the  margin  of  the 
Revision  :  **  began  to  make  their  way,  pluck- 
ing" the  heads  of  the  grain.  The  men 
were  hungry ;  the  stalks  of  grain  hung  over 
the  path ;  they  pulled  the  heads  of  some  of 
them,  instead  of  trampling  them  down,  and 
rubbed  the  grain  out  in  their  hands,  blowing 
the  chaff  away.  Have  n't  you  often  done 
the  same,  little  country  boy } 

The  Pharisees  were  very  particular  about 
the  Sabbath  day.  They  would  not  reap  grain, 
and  they  said  pulling  off  a  head  of  wheat 
was  just  the  same  as  reaping.  They  would 
not  thresh  grain  on  the  Sabbath,  and  they  said 
that  rubbing  out  heads  in  your  hand  was 
just  another  kind  of  threshing,  and  was  a  sin. 

Johnnie   said  he  wished  it  had  been   his 


AMONG   THE  STANDING   GRAIN. 


149 


field.  The  poor  hungry  disciples  should  have 
had  all  the  wheat  they  wanted  to  rub  out, 
Sabbath  day  or  any  other  day. 

"  Well,"  said  his  father,  "  don't  forget, 
when  you  come  to  have  a  farm  of  your  own; 
to  turn  in  a  few  bushels  every  year  for  char- 
ity and  for  foreign  missions  and  other  things 
that  the  Lord  loves.  The  Master  is  never 
hungry  any  more  now ;  he  does  not  eat  it 
himself ;  but  he  receives  it  from  us  all  the 
same,  and  remembers  it  at  last.  We  don't 
read  in  Mark  that  the  owner  of  the  field  said 
any  thing,  and  we  can  have  the  rame  pleasure 
he  had  in  seeing  hungry  disciples  fed  with 
his  grain." 


WHAT   CAN  WE    KNOW  ABOUT 

HEAVEN? 


f' 


PERHAPS  not  very  much ;  and  yet,  by 
trying  to  interpret  God's  dealings  with 
us  and  lessons  to  us,  interpreting  them  with 
respect  to  heaven  even  as  we  interpret  them 
with  respect  to  earthly  things,  we  may  learn 
more  than  now  we  think.  We  may  safely 
conclude  —  for  we  have  it  forced  upon  us  by 
all  our  life-long  experiences  —  that  there  is  a 
spiritual  lesson  wrapped  up  in  every  provi- 
dence, and  a  good  moral  to  be  drawn  out  of 
every  experience  —  drawn  out  of  it  because 
God  put  it  there,  desirous  that  we  should 
draw  it  out.  Now,  taking  what  we  find  in 
Scripture  and  applying  the  same  Christian 
common-sense  to  it  that  we  do  to  matters 
relating  to  the  church  and  the  home,  what  do 
we  find  about  heaven  ? 
Do  they  think  about  us  in  heaven }    We 


150 


WHAT  CAN   WE  KNOW? 


151 


say  Yes ;  and  we  arrive  at  it  in  this  way : 
we  are  told  there  is  joy  in  heaven  over  one 
sinner  that  repenteth.  Now,  if  the  angels 
rejoice  over  the  salvation  of  a  sinner,  is  it 
to  be  supposed  that  they  keep  the  secret 
among  themselves  and  do  not  communicate 
it  to  the  saints  ?  Have  they  so  great  an 
interest  in  a  saint  at  the  very  beginning  of  his 
career,  being  happy  in  his  happiness,  and  do 
they  lose  that  interest  and  sympathy  after- 
wards ?  If  there  was  great  rejoicing  among 
the  angels  when  Saul  of  Tarsus  was  con- 
verted, would  they  when  he  got  to  hea  ca 
lose  so  much  of  their  interest  in  him  as  to 
keep  from  him  what  they  were  then  rejoicing 
at  —  the  salvation  of  some  other  sinner? 
And  would  there  be  any  thing  wrong  in  his 
asking  the  angels  what  they  were  rejoicing 
at  ?  There  would  be  nothing  wrong  in  doing 
it  among  the  saints  on  earth.  Why  should 
this  experience  of  our  spiritual  fellowship — 
that  of  asking  questions  on  spiritual  things  — 
be   thrown   away  when   we  get  to  heaven? 


152 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


Then  we  conclude  that  the  angels  will  have 
no  desire  to  keep  from  the  saints  in  heaven 
the  news  they  circulate  among  themselves, 
of  this  one  and  that  one  being  converted. 
And  if  for  one  moment  we  could  suppose  they 
had  such  a  desire,  they  could  not  refuse  to  an- 
swer the  saints'  questioning.  And  we  shall 
have  our  memories  in  eternity.  If  not,  how 
could  we,  as  a  matter  of  reward  or  punish- 
ment, receive  consciously  to  ourselves,  "ac- 
cording to  the  deeds  done  in  the  body  "  ?  In 
the  parable  of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus  there 
was  in  all  the  parties  a  perfect  remembrance 
of  this  life,  and  our  Lord  never  gives  us  in 
his  parables  specific  circumstances  which 
teach  false  general  principles.  And  if  we 
remember  this  life,  shall  we  not  remember 
our  friends  1  And  shall  we  not  often  think 
of  them  and  speak  of  them  .?  It  was  one  of 
our  great  pleasures  here :  will  it  cease  to  be  a 
pleasure  there }  Yes  ;  our  friends  in  heaven 
think  of  us. 

Shall  we  know  each  other  there  1    It  is  not 


WHAT  CAN   WE  KNOW? 


153 


) 


I 


certain  that  we  shall  in  every  case  at  first. 
We  may  need  introductions  to  help  our 
recognition.  Benjamin  Franklin  came  home, 
and  when  the  forward  fellow  insisted  on  being 
allowed  to  stay  all  night,  his  mother  let  him 
sit  in  an  arm-chair,  instead  of  giving  him  the 
"  spare  bedroom,"  because  she  did  not  know 
it  was  her  son.  And  how  often  must  such 
cases  of  non-recognition  occur  in  the  emi- 
grating from  earth  to  heaven.  But  how  do 
saints  do  on  earth  in  such  cases.?  Even  if 
the  features  of  that  "spiritual  body,"  what- 
ever that  expression  may  mean,  do  not  give 
a  recognized  likeness  in  cases  of  long  sep- 
aration, perhaps  the  voice  may.  And  if  nei- 
ther looks  nor  voice  lead  to  identification, 
what  is  to  hinder  us  from  asking } 

Do  babes  grow  up  in  heaven  }  Yes  ;  why 
not }  All  earthly  analogy  points  in  that 
direction.  It  seems  unreasonable  to  suppose 
that  a  babe  of  a  day  old  will  the  next  day  be 
a  mature  intelligence  in  heaven,  and  able  to 
take  its  place  in  work  and  praise  with  the 


154 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


\ 


apostles,  martyrs,  and  angels,  whose  praises 
are  so  much  mingled  with  past  memories,  and 
whose  work  is  doubtless  founded  upon  so 
much  past  experience.  And  it  seems  equally 
unreasonable  to  suppose  an  immature  infant 
always  remaining  just  as  it  enters  heaven. 
We  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  we  shall 
remain  stationary  in  intelligence  and  spiritual 
development,  but  every  reason  to  the  con- 
trary. Why  should  it  be  otherwise  with  a 
babe.^  I  can  remember,  at  the  age  of  four 
years,  getting  the  most  astonishing  and  rap- 
turous piece  of  intelligence  I  ever  got  —  that 
boys  grew  to  be  men.  I  never  knew  it 
before ;  I  supposed  that  boys  were  always 
boys,  and  men  always  men.  But  now,  oh, 
how  my  prospects  widened  out !  Is  it  not 
equally  a  "childish  thing"  to  be  " put  away,' 
that  babes  are  always  babes  in  heaven } 
Well,  if  they  neither  leap  at  once  to  mature 
intelligence  nor  remain  always  as  they  are, 
there  must  be  a  "growing  up"  in  heaven. 
And  oh,  how  much  better   a  bringing  up 


WHAT  CAN   WE  KNOW? 


155 


have  they  than  we  could  give  them  !  Angels 
and  saints  and  Christ  himself  to  take  care  of 
our  babes ;  and  all  safe  in  their  Father's 
house,  and  trained  in  their  first  speech  to 
talk  of  our  coming. 

It  will  do  us  good  to  think  of  these  things. 
Our  imagination  is  given  us  by  God  for  good 
and  wise  uses.  Why  should  we  not  let  it 
out  sometimes  in  long  flights  toward  heaven  } 
The  more  we  think  about  heaven,  the  more 
we  know  of  it.  And  the  more  we  know  of  it, 
the  more  we  shall  want  to  be  there.  And  we 
may  each  say,  as  an  old  friend  of  mine  said 
of  himself:  "I  am  bidden  to  the  supper  of 
the  Lamb,  and  I  intend  to  go." 


u 


MEMORIALS. 


WHEREVER  there  is  any  thing  glori- 
ous or  great,  or  any  man  who  has 
greatly  won  the  admiration  of  his  race,  there 
is  a  desire  that  it  or  he  should  not  be  for- 
gotten. "It  is  only  a  half-sized  fir."  There 
are  hundreds  of  better  ones  in  sight.  "  But 
this  one  was  planted  by  Sir  Walter  Scott 
just  the  year  before  he  died."  Ah,  that 
makes  all  the  difference !  It  is  only  an  old 
silver  watch,  the  shape  and  size  of  a  goose 
egg.  "  An  old  turnip ! "  says  a  youth  at  our 
side.  But  it  was  carried  by  the  great  Pro- 
tector, and  money  could  not  buy  it !  It  is 
only  a  faded  blue  pennon  ;  the  poorest  fishing- 
smack  you  see  has  a  smarter  one.  But  this 
was  carried  by  the  Covenanters  at  Bothwell 
Brig,  and  is  their  memorial. 

And  we  are  ever  erecting  memorials  :  tombs, 
monuments,  buildings,  societies,  stained  win- 

156 


I 

i 


MEMORIALS. 


157 


i 

i 


dows,  and  whatever  else  we  can  devise. 
It  seems  natural  and  right.  The  school-boy 
carves  his  name  on  a  tree  or  scratches  it  on  a 
rock,  hoping  some  one  may  read  it  when  he 
is  gone  or  after  he  is  far  away.  The  shep- 
herd piles  a  cairn  of  stones  on  the  high  hill- 
top ;  the  rich  man  builds  a  wing  to  a  college, 
and  the  new  hall  is  named  after  him ;  the 
ship-owner  calls  his  best  and  newest  ship 
after  his  favorite  daughter  ;  and  in  every  way 
and  always  men  seek  and  establish  memorials 
of  themselves  and  others. 

Now  why  should  not  God  have  his  memo- 
rial on  the  earth  ?  Watt,  Fulton,  and  others 
have  theirs  in  the  steam-engine,  and  Morse 
in  the  telegraph.  But  this  is  only  to  the 
civilized  and  the  intelligent.  To  a  red  Indian 
a  steam  vessel  is  only  a  fire-canoe,  and  the 
telegraph  a  speaking-iron  ;  he  knows  nothing 
of  the  intellects  that  brought  them  to  perfec- 
tion. So  God  has  his  memorials  every-where. 
The  earth  as  well  as  the  heavens  is  full  of  his 
glory;  but  it  is  not  observed  by  men  as  a 


&  . 


158 


T//E  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


race.  Their  eyes  are  shut  and  their  ears  are 
dull ;  they  neither  see  nor  hear  nor  know 
the  ever-present  God.  But  there  is  a  memo- 
rial that  can  be  known :  holy  men  and  women ; 
converted  souls;  born  citizens  of  the  heav- 
enly Zion.  These  are  God's  epistles,  "  known 
and  read  of  all  men." 

War  has  been  man's  memorial.  The  san- 
guinary and  terrible  Attila  boasted  that  "the 
grass  never  grew  where  his  horse  had  set 
his  foot ; "  and  at  this  very  day  the  Turkish 
dominions,  in  their  length  and  breadth,  are  a 
memorial  of  man's  destroying  hatred.     But 

'*Nae  nicht  shall  be  in  heaven,  and  nae  desolatin^ 

sea, 
And  nae  tyrant-hoofs  shall  trample  i'  the  city  o'  the 

free." 

God's  memorial  is  peace.  Instead  of  hatred 
shall  be  love,  and  kindness  shall  come 
for  selfishness  :  "  Instead  of  the  thorn  shall 
come  up  the  fir  tree,  and  instead  of  the  brier 
shall  come  up  the  myrtle  tree :  and  it  shall  be 


MEMORIALS. 


159 


to  the  Lord  for  a  name,  for  an  everlasting 
sign  that  shall  not  be  cut  off"  (Is.  55  :  13). 

Away  with  despair !  The  earth  has  been 
getting  better  ever  since  Christ  was  preached. 
Every  day  builds  new  trophies  and  memo- 
rials of  God.  God's  memorials  —  redeemed 
souls  on  earth,  holy  men  and  women,  peace, 
happiness,  truth,  kindness,  brotherhood  —  are 
filling  and  encircling  the  world.  At  the 
height  of  the  Roman  Empire  some  one  was 
dissuaded  from  provoking  the  emperor  by  the 
argument.  Where  could  he  go  to  be  beyond 
his  power }  There  was  not  a  country  where 
the  emperor  could  not  reach  him.  So  the 
whole  earth  is  the  empire  of  God.  The  unbe- 
liever is  confronted  with  these  memorials  of 
his  power  and  grace  at  every  step. 

We  can  not  do  the  works  of  God,  ])ut  we 
can  testify  of  him.  We  can  not  plant  our- 
selves, but  we  can  give  ourselves  up  to  the 
planting  of  his  hand. 

**  He  also  serves,  who  only  stands  and  waits," 


i6o 


THE  PRINT  OF  HIS  SHOE. 


says  Milton,  and  he  can  be  a  memorial  of 
God  on  the  earth  who  becomes  by  his  own 
consent,  but  not  by  his  own  power,  a  pleasant 
and    fruitful    tree,    however    lowly,    in    the| 
garden  of  God. 


E, 

emorial  of 
►y  his  own 
a  pleasant 
fy    in    the* 


